Chapter 1 - Brave New World

"What happens when people open their hearts?"
"They get better."
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

It had been a long time since Celestia had driven this way. At least, the few months that she’d been superintendent felt like a long time. She liked her new job—its importance was undeniable—but she missed having a more hands-on approach to the growth of young minds. She realized this as they arrived at their destination, almost pulling into the Canterlot High School faculty parking lot purely out of habit. Fortunately, she remembered herself quickly enough to instead pull her Hyundai Tiburon alongside the curb in front of the school: the point at which she’d watched parents drop off her students over the course of a great many years.

She’d never expected, then, that she would one day be in their place.

Setting the gear shift to Park, Celestia turned to her passenger: a young girl with blond hair tipped with teal. “Well, here we are,” she said with an encouraging smile. “Nervous?”

The fourteen-year-old girl scoffed. “Celestia, please. I was the scourge of a dozen kingdoms. Hardened warriors trembled at the mere mention of my name!”

Celestia gave a knowing grin in response, and after a moment, the girl looked away. “I’m a little nervous, yeah.”

The girl was looking out the window at the façade of CHS with clear apprehension on her face. They had arrived about half an hour earlier than the first classes of the day would start. The girl would need time to get her schedule from the student counselor’s office, as well as to get to know the layout of the school. As a result, there weren’t many students around yet, but that would change in approximately twenty minutes.

“It’s okay, Chrys. First day of high school is always a little scary, but I think you’ll find that it’s not all bad once you’re in there,” Celestia said. “Who knows? You may meet your best friends for life right within those walls. I did at mine, after all.”

Chrysalis’s gaze lingered out the window, but the apprehension slowly started to give way to cautious optimism. “Yeah, friends…. Been awhile since I had some of those.”

And the last friends she’d had were met under rather horrifying circumstances, Celestia thought to herself. Try as she might, it was sometimes hard to keep the maudlin thoughts at bay when she looked at the girl.

It had only been a week since Celestia and the others had returned from Equestria after attending Sunset Shimmer’s coronation. To make a long story short, the trip hadn’t exactly gone according to plan; the girl sitting beside her was evidence of that. Celestia certainly hadn’t been planning on adopting a lost and frightened girl turned monster turned girl again when she and the others first departed for Equestria.

Celestia was reminded of a time when she was a child that she and her family had visited an animal shelter shortly after moving to America. She had pleaded and pleaded with her mother to go, promising she “just wanted to look.” Her mother had agreed, making it clear that they were not leaving with a new dog, but sure enough, that had been when they had gotten their first family dog, a sad, sickly lab named Joey. Rescued from a hard life on the streets, only to be put on the proverbial chopping block when no one wanted to adopt a dog with diabetes, young Celestia had formed a bond with him almost immediately and refused to leave without him.

Now, a good forty years later, Celestia couldn’t help but see the parallels to the girl Chrysalis, who had once been Crisalide della Lucca in ancient Italy.

After a week back in Canterlot, California, young Chrysalis (who, technically speaking, was a millennium short of being called “young”) had acclimated to the modern world of humanity excellently. However, not without a few jokes on the matter.

“What’s this? Some sort of keeper of time?” Chrysalis had asked with wonder upon first moving into Celestia’s townhouse and seeing the object hanging on the wall above the television.

Celestia had just laughed. “Very funny, Chrys, but I know you know what a clock is.”

Even the technology unfamiliar to Chrysalis from her time in Equestria she’d managed to learn pretty quickly; surfing the internet on Celestia’s old laptop was how she’d managed to learn enough about humanity to follow along with most typical conversations. She had, however, once overheard Celestia swearing and thought that she was calling her over, mishearing the name of the Lord for her own. In her defense, she was in another room, and “Christ” could very easily have sounded like “Chrys” when thoroughly muffled. Once Chrysalis realized what Celestia had actually said though, an entirely different misunderstanding ensued.

“I’ve never heard someone use the Lord’s name in vain so flagrantly,” Chrysalis had told her with a concerned frown. “If a member of the clergy heard you, you would be arrested. Perhaps accused of witchcraft!”

Celestia had laughed before she realized that Chrysalis hadn’t been joking that time. “Oh, a lot’s changed since your time, Chrys. Nobody cares about casual blaspheming anymore.”

Chrysalis took a few moments to process this information before turning both middle fingers towards the ceiling. “FUCK YOU, GOD!”

“Okay, you might draw some attention doing that.”

All in all, Chrysalis had done a fine job of acclimating to her new life on Earth…save for one thing: She was still visibly uncomfortable with the idea of being part of a family.

“Thanks, Celestia,” she said, bringing Celestia back to the present as she opened the passenger side door.

It had taken a few days of gentle nagging for her to get Chrysalis to stop calling her Ms. Celestia and just Celestia. But Chrysalis wouldn’t go any further than that. She never called her Tia, despite how many times she’d heard Celestia’s friends and family use the name and encouraged her to try it too. And she certainly never called her “Mom,” or “Mother.” It just wasn’t in the cards yet. But that didn’t bother Celestia nearly as much as Chrysalis’s clear discomfort at being touched.

As Chrysalis zipped up the backpack at her feet, Celestia gingerly reached out to pat her shoulder. Chrysalis instinctively tensed up, just as she did every other time. And, like every other time, Chrysalis shot her an apologetic look; she knew she was safe with Celestia, and seemed to want the affection she offered, but she couldn’t stop her body from reacting to imagined pain. Plainer than any scar, it was lingering evidence of the horrific abuse Chrysalis had suffered over her long life, and it broke Celestia’s heart every single time.

“I’ll see you later,” Chrysalis said, trying to give her a reassuring smile.

Then she was gone, shutting the passenger side door behind her. Celestia lingered there until she watched the girl disappear through the front doors of CHS, then she pulled away from the curb and started the drive to her office downtown.

It was hard sometimes, caring for someone who had suffered so much, but it was worth it. She realized it was exactly what she was missing when she’d left teaching for administration. It was what she was meant to do.

Backpack slung over her shoulder, Chrysalis looked on into the front hallway of Canterlot Highschool. Drab green lockers lined the walls on either side, and at the other end of the hall a short distance away Chrysalis could see what was clearly the central chamber (the “hub cavern”, as it was known within changeling hives). Celestia had given her directions for how to get to the guidance counselor’s office from there, so Chrysalis immediately made her way through the quiet, empty halls. Well, almost empty—there were a few humans around and Chrysalis did her best to avoid eye contact, easily done as nobody seemed to notice the newcomer.

The feeling of worrying about being discovered as something other than those around her was a feeling she had always been familiar with, given it would cause quite a scene if her magic ever were to give out in public and her true form exposed to the world. After all, humans didn’t look like twisted caricatures of fairies with giant gnarled horns coming from their foreheads.

She took a left through the “hub cavern” and walked through another hallway full of lockers. I suppose one of those might be mine, she thought. It took her several minutes to find the room she was looking for, but eventually she did, thankful that Celestia had thought to drop her off early. Inside, she was surprised to find a familiar woman with dark blue hair like the night sky sitting at the desk, talking to a man with black hair wearing a dark red suit. Perhaps this wasn’t the right office after all.

“Principal Luna?” Chrysalis asked. “Sorry, I was looking for the guidance counselor’s office.”

“Oh, Chrys! There you are,” Luna said, looking up from what she’d been working on. “You’re in the right place. The guidance counselor is out sick today, so the vice principal and I are taking turns to fill in for her.”

“Hopefully, the superintendent can allocate more funds so we can hire more than one,” said the man Luna had been speaking to.

Nodding, Luna kept her focus on Chrysalis as she gestured to one of the chairs. “Please, be seated.”

Chrysalis did so, exchanging a look with the man—Chrysalis was assuming he was the vice principal—as she did. She caught him briefly looking her up and down, though she tasted no hint of amorous intent behind it (and she had a keen taste for it). Instead, she sensed only disapproval laced with a hint of disgust. She wasn’t sure why; the skirt and sweater she was wearing were much less revealing than what she had initially wanted to wear on her first day of school. Chrysalis had to control the urge to bare her fangs and hiss at the man.

“So Chrys, how are you liking living here?” Luna asked. “Are you adjusting to living with my sister okay?”

It beats living in a changeling hive in the badlands of Equestria, Chrysalis thought. To say nothing of how I was living before then. Of course, Chrysalis couldn’t answer as such with the vice principal present, so she opted for a neutral, “I’m doing fine.” Then with a hint of a grin, added, “I’m nothing if not adaptable.”

“Good to hear,” Luna said, straightening out several papers on her desk that Chrysalis realized likely pertained to her. “Now, everything looks to be in order with your registration. Leave it to my sister to produce flawless paperwork! Now….”

Luna proceeded to brief Chrysalis on everything she’d need to know to get started, including giving her a copy of her class schedule, her locker number, and what she should tell the teachers of each of her classes. As she did, Chrysalis noted the vice principal thumbing through her files with idle curiosity. As Luna seemed to be wrapping up her spiel, the man cleared his throat.

“Luna, I’m still not entirely clear on Chrysalis’s background.” He spoke with a nasally stern voice, and his grim demeanor reminded Chrysalis of the character Snape from one of the many movies she had watched with Celestia and Sable in her attempt to catch up with human popular culture before starting school. “I know that your sister formally adopted her during your trip to Klamath Falls last week, but I wasn’t aware that Celestia was even considering having kids. Especially with her new job as superintendent to consider.”

“I hardly see how this is relevant right now, Mr. Neighsay,” Luna said.

The vice principal—Neighsay, if Chrysalis heard Luna right—looked directly at the girl rather than Luna as he said, “From what both you and your sister told me, Ms. Chrysalis had a very difficult upbringing, which while regrettable, does raise the issue of the… patterns of behavior often exhibited by children with such a background. Perhaps Everfree View or even the Blanks would be a better fit for her than our school.”

Ah, so that’s what this is about, Chrysalis thought, thinking she was starting to understand Neighsay’s near-hostility towards her. He was right to be concerned, of course. Chrysalis’s “patterns of behavior” were very consistent when she was queen of the changelings. She was far beyond the mere delinquency that Neighsay was clearly used to dealing with.

Luna opened her mouth to respond, but it was Chrysalis herself who cut her off. “It’s okay, Ms. Luna. I don’t mind talking about my background, as Mr. Neighsay oh so eloquently put it,” she said sweetly.

She then stood from her chair and faced Neighsay directly, readying the lie that Celestia and the others had helped her prepare. “My mother, Allegra Musica—yes, just like the classical musician—was friends with Celestia in college. When she married my father, they moved back to his hometown of Fierenze, Italy. I suppose they were happy for a while, but then they had me and I guess my father began to feel trapped in a marriage growing more loveless by the day.”

At first, it seemed that Neighsay wasn’t buying what she was selling, and Chrysalis realized she’d have to add a bit of flare to her performance. So, she employed a bit of method acting: She gave her faceless fictional father the face of her very real tormentor. The one who had first dragged her across the dimensional divide to his world and proceeded torture her, violate her, and subject her to horrors that would have driven the man staring her down to madness. The memories of King Sombra formed a cold pit of fear and despair in her chest, which quickly filled with lava-like rage as she remembered how helpless she had felt. When she next spoke, the pain and toxic vitriol in her voice seemed to turn the room a few degrees colder, and subconsciously her fists clenched to the point her knuckles were turning white against her already fair skin.

“So, my father did what most pathetic men do in such a situation and developed a drinking problem. Then a ‘hitting his wife’ problem. Finally, he started looking at me the wrong way. Touching me in ways a father isn’t supposed to with his daughter. That’s when my mother finally decided to leave the useless bastard and came back home to the Land of the Free.”

Chrysalis let the uncomfortable silence fill the room for a second, then two more as she continued her staring contest with Neighsay. “Any questions?”

Clearing his throat, Neighsay forfeited the contest and glanced at the files in his hand. “It says here you were homeschooled after that.”

“Yes, the divorce with her husband and the travel expenses back home left her mother in a pretty bad position financially,” Luna said, jumping in with the clear hopes of defusing the tense atmosphere. “And then just a year ago all of her nervous smoking finally caught up to her, and well… you know the rest.”

“I suppose, but that means we don’t have documentation on her–”

“My mother was frightened of just about everyone,” Chrysalis added quickly, “and given how my father was acting towards me, she was afraid everyone would, which is why I was homeschooled. Between that, working two jobs and getting practically no help from anyone, it’s a small wonder my mother survived as long as she did.”

“Yes, I suppose it’s lucky that Ms. Musica reached out to her old college friend when her lung cancer started getting worse, or Ms. Chrysalis would still be a ward of the state,” Neighsay conceded. “Though, I still don’t understand why Ms. Celestia never mentioned she’d been tutoring her friend’s daughter in foster care for the past year.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Luna asked. “She made a pretty big career move this past year. She didn’t want to be accused of favoritism in the school system. You and I both know how often that happens.”

Neighsay grunted, “Yes, I suppose so.”

“Are we done here?” Chrysalis asked, managing to look down her nose at the much taller man. “If you’re quite finished prying into my life, I don’t want to be late for my first class.”

Neighsay seemed ready to retort, but Luna cut him off. “Yes, you’re good to go, Chrys,” she said, giving Chrysalis a warm smile that managed to cleanse a good deal of the poison from her. “I hope you enjoy your first day!”

The halls of the school were much livelier when Chrysalis returned to them; already the sounds of laughter and arguing alike filled the air as dozens of kids her age (on paper, at least) milled about. Chrysalis had personally infiltrated many facilities over her long life as a changeling queen, but for some reason felt a trepidation looking at the human children—her peers now—that she had never felt before. Deciding not to dwell on it, Chrysalis set out to find her locker before her first class could begin.

“Ms. Chrysalis, one more thing,” Neighsay’s dark tones beckoned from behind her, and rolling her eyes, Chrysalis turned to face him.

“Forget something?” Chrysalis asked, allowing a hint of challenge to enter her tone.

Neighsay frowned, clearly having noted it. “Only to remind you how seriously misbehavior is taken at this school. Do not think that you’ll get a free pass to act out just because your legal guardian is a superintendent, or that her sister is our principal. On the contrary, your connections within the school system means I’ll be holding you to a higher standard than your peers.” Neighsay adjusted the glasses on his face as he looked down on her. “Am I clear?”

“Very,” Chrysalis said, meeting his gaze with an admittedly arrogant flip of her teal-tipped blonde hair. Perhaps it was a remnant of her pride as a changeling queen talking, but there was no way she was letting him get the final word in. “Just so long as you hold yourself to the same standard. I’d hate to have to tell Principal Luna that her vice principal was power-tripping.”

The satisfaction of seeing the man’s eyes momentarily bug out in shock was quickly replaced by panic. What am I doing?! I’m going to get in trouble on my first day!

To her own surprise, the thought that scared Chrysalis the most wasn’t the consequences that Neighsay could bring down on her. What scared her was the thought of the inevitable disappointment she’d taste from Celestia and Sable.

So, when Neighsay, his voice on the edge of fury, asked, “Is that a threat?” Chrysalis did her best to backpedal.

“No sir,” she said. “Just some friendly advice.”

Perhaps she could have done better. Nevertheless, in what was perhaps an act of mercy from the vice principal in lieu of it being Chrysalis’s first day, Neighsay adjusted his collar and turned, likely towards his office.

“Well, my ‘friendly advice’ is for you to improve your attitude the next time we speak.”

This time, Chrysalis bit back the parting remark on her lips (“I will if you will”) and only stood there and watched as the man walked firmly away. He redirected a glare likely meant for her towards a trio of other freshmen girls dressed nicely in pinks and blues who had been watching the exchange with some curiosity.

With all of that finally finished, Chrysalis turned back and started walking in the direction of her locker, as described by Principal Luna.

“Wow! That was pretty cool!”

The new voice chirping just beside her made Chrysalis realize she wasn’t walking alone, and she turned to see a girl her age walking beside her with a huge grin on her face. The girl wore a simple yellow t-shirt and blue jeans, along with a large pink bow in her long red hair.

“Havta say, I’ve never seen anyone talk back to Neighsay like that. At least, not without getting into huge trouble!” the new girl continued, her orange eyes so bright they may as well have been an extension of her smile. “You new here?”

Just like that, Chrysalis found herself interacting with another child. It felt strange: she’d lived for so long as a queen she’d forgotten that she, too, was still only a mere child. What was she supposed to say? How do human children talk to each other again? Was it the same as pony children? For that matter, how did pony children talk to each other?

“Strong silent type, huh? That’s cool!” the girl then extended her hand as they continued to walk. “I’m Apple Bloom!”

Right. Name! That’s always a good place to start. “Uh, Chrysalis,” she said, looking at Apple Bloom’s extended hand for a few moments before remembering that she was supposed to shake it.

Chrysalis took the offered hand and winced at the unexpected power Apple Bloom put into the shake. More concerning was the fact that she wasn’t stopping.

“Hey! I think my sister told me about you!” Apple Bloom exclaimed, her smile growing bigger. “Yeah, she and her friends visited you up in Klamath Falls right? Our old principal adopted you?” Chrysalis didn’t know what else to do but nod, encouraging Apple Bloom’s enthusiasm all the more. She did, fortunately, finally let go of her hand. “Wow, I didn’t think you’d be going to school here!”

Chrysalis only tried to remember the other human girls who had come to Equestria with Princess Sunset Shimmer’s retinue. There had been quite a few of them, and she hadn’t exactly tried to get to know them during her time in the castle. What she even knew of them was less from interacting with them and more due to the fact they were the counterparts to Princess Twilight’s closest friends, though not perfectly. Nevertheless, Chrysalis was pretty sure she’d seen the same freckles and cheery grin on one of their faces.

“Your sister’s… Applejack, right?” she asked.

Apple Bloom nodded, the pink bow in her hair bobbing in place. “Got it in one!”

Apple Bloom then stopped, evidently having reached her own locker. Chrysalis’s locker was still way over on the other side of the building so she continued walking without another word.

“Oh, uh… I guess I’ll see you later!” Apple Bloom said, and Chrysalis looked over her shoulder to see the girl waving after her, a big grin still on her face. Chrysalis mimicked the action, slowly feeling a grin of her own start to form.

This Apple Bloom kid sure was friendly, and her emotions had tasted sweet enough—and strong enough that Chrysalis hadn’t even needed to actively feed on them to get that taste. Had she just made her first friend? The thought carried her all the way to her locker, where she lingered until the first bell of classes rang.

Celestia had left with Chrysalis for the latter’s first day of school, and Sable now sat at the kitchen table in front of his open laptop, mug of coffee in hand. He was currently in the midst of the first of what would be many weekly SIREN video meetings, in which the personnel under his command would report on the progress of the previous week, as well as brief him on the goals of the current and projections for the future. The meetings had to be brief, as for three of them, it was a school morning.

“Our trip to Equestria actually gave me an idea,” Adagio said, dipping a spoon in her untouched bowl of cereal. “When we onboard the remainder of the Earth-based forces, we could have some of them working at the mansion here as maids and groundskeepers.”

“This way, they can still do their jobs as protectors while remaining inconspicuous,” Aria said, who was standing just behind Adagio taking bites of a nutrition bar. “Well, as inconspicuous as a housekeeping staff consisting entirely of muscular women could be.”

Raising his brow, Sable nodded, feeling a slight grin of approval creep its way onto his face. “In other words, model our new SIRENs after the Princess’s Hooves. Not a bad idea, Capt. Dazzle!”

Even through the slightly grainy feed, Sable could see Adagio fighting the proud grin from her own face to keep a professional look there. “Thank you, sir!”

“See, Dagi? I’m not the only one with good ideas around here!” Sonata’s voice chirped from somewhere out of view of the camera on Adagio’s iPad. It did, however, capture the continued losing battle with the grin on her face.

Sonata then leaned over so she was in frame. “I was thinking of talking to Sunset about building a staff residence on the property. Something they can use as a barracks while they’re on duty, and it would give us an extra egress point for the underground base. Of course, they’d all still have their apartments downtown.”

“We’ll have to talk to Uncle Night and Aunt Velvet about that, too!” Aria, quiet until now, added.

“I’m sure they’ll agree, as it’ll help increase the property value,” Adagio noted.

“Sounds like a plan. You have my authorization to take this up with Sunset...and your aunt and uncle.” Normally this kind of proposal would fall to Sable, as the overall commander of Sunset’s forces, but considering the triplets actually lived with her and Sable did not, it was often easier not to strictly adhere to chain of command in such circumstances. “Just make sure she hires a construction company to actually build it instead of just magicking up a building from nothing.”

Sable wasn’t even sure whether Sunset was capable of such a feat even with her unfathomable power, but still. Sable wanted as much of a legitimate paper trail supporting their operations as possible, even if Sunset was frighteningly good at forging what she needed.

“Aye, sir,” Adagio responded.

Sable then directed his attention to the other screen in the three-way video conference. “Speaking of the ATG, how was their first week of training, Master Chief?”

Video conferencing from the apartment above his auto-repair shop, Hard Luck Towing, Master Chief Petty Officer Troubleshoes Clyde cleared his throat and said, “Well, they clearly have the discipline and knowledge of experienced soldiers, but it’s still taking time to translate that to their human bodies. A phrase I never expected to be saying in a professional meeting….”

Despite everything that he had been through with Sable, Sunset and the rest of her crazy family, Troubleshoes still seemed to be having trouble coming to grips with the nature of magic and talking ponies from another world. It was one of the reasons he had opted out of the trip to Equestria with the rest of Sunset’s retinue. Of course, Troubleshoes had expressed regret at not being there for them when he heard just how badly shit had hit the fan over there.

“It’s alright,” Sable had told him at the time. “You had bigger priorities to focus on.”

It was the truth. Tirespin’s birthday had been that weekend, and Troubleshoes had made too much ground on repairing the relationship with his estranged daughter to miss it. The very same daughter who still had no idea that her father was involved with forces not of this world.

“How are they taking your weapons training?” Sable asked, bringing himself back to the present.

“Surprisingly well, actually. Ushanka has gotten to be quite the crack shot with the AR-50. She’s shaping up to be the best marksman in the group.” Troubleshoes stopped to take a bite of toast. “I’m particularly impressed with Lt. Side, who’s a natural with just about every firearm I give her. I can see why she was an officer in her old forces!”

Troubleshoes continued to give his updates on the Advance Training Group’s progress until the meeting approached an end—something that didn’t take long owing to the triplets’ need to go to school. After the triplets signed off, Sable made to do the same, bidding Troubleshoes a good day.

“Just a second, Sable. You got a minute?”

Not really, if Sable was being honest. He still had to talk to Blueblood, who was to give him a report on his progress organizing cover identities for the next group of SIREN trainees heading over from Equestria. And then, he would have to perform a miracle and make it to the Blanks in time to teach his first class.

“Sure, I’ve got a minute, but not much more than that,” Sable said. “Something wrong?”

“I was actually hoping to ask you the same thing,” Troubleshoes said, his professional tone giving way to that of a concerned friend. “Excuse the insubordination, but you look like shit. Everything okay?”

If he was being honest, Sable felt like the walking dead, but he had no idea that he looked the part as well. “I’m fine. Just had a lot on my plate recently.”

Between his job as Commander, Special Initiative Command and all the work that entailed as SIREN continued to expand, as well as teaching full time at the Blanks, Sable’s plate was starting to overflow. And then, there was the other full-time job that had been dropped into his lap: taking care of a child.

It was hard to think of Chrysalis as his child, but that was exactly what she was now, wasn’t she? She lived with him and Celestia in what had once been the guest bedroom of her townhouse and depended on both of them for love and support. Despite that, she still felt like mostly a stranger to him. The girl was very closed off (and considering what she’d been through, of course she was), the only real times she’d begin to open up being mostly with Celestia. Whenever Celestia had to leave Sable alone with Chrysalis, he found himself unsure of what to say to her, and silence filled the room.

He still cared about her, though; that fact was indisputable. After all, Celestia owed her life to the girl and the two of them agreed that she deserved a better life than the one she had been given. But seeing the layers of walls between them, Sable couldn’t help but wonder whether they were really the right people to give it to her.

“Right, a lot on your plate,” Troubleshoes said, taking Sable out of his uneasily churning thoughts. “I take it that girl you took in is right at the center of it?”

Sable raised an eyebrow. “How did you…?”

“A father knows. You look as lost as I felt a few months ago.” Troubleshoes took a sip from his glass of orange juice. “Tell you what: I know you have to get going, but why don’t we have lunch? Whenever you have time, doesn’t have to be today. You can air out whatever’s on your mind, and….” Troubleshoes shrugged. “Maybe I can give you some advice?”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Sable said, actually feeling a tiny bit of the weight on his shoulders lifting away. “Thanks, Troubleshoes. You’re a good friend.”

With another shrug, Troubleshoes said, “Hey, you helped me out when things weren’t going well between me and Tires. Least I can do is return the favor!”

Her first class of the day was history. After giving Chrysalis a brief introduction to the rest of the class, the teacher (Ms. Fossil) instructed everyone to put their books away for the test. Seeing as Chrysalis was only starting out today, Ms. Fossil told her that she wouldn’t have to worry about failing the test. Instead, taking it was to help Fossil assess how much she would need to catch her up on the syllabus. As it happened, the subject of the test was the first half of the American Civil War, something that Celestia had actually taught her a bit about during their tutoring sessions the previous week. Chrysalis felt she actually had a pretty decent understanding of the subject, owing to her capability to draw comparisons to the civil war in Equestria when the Royal Sisters fought.

Fossil started the timer, and the classroom was silent save for the sound of pencils on paper. Chrysalis was making decent headway on the first question when a “psst” caught her attention.

“Hey! New kid!” the same voice whispered again. Chrysalis looked to the desk beside hers and saw a girl in a gray sweater with messy purple hair and a band-aid across her nose. It looked like she’d rolled straight out of bed and into her seat. “You got a pencil I could borrow?”

Years of ruling with an iron hoof meant that Chrysalis’s first instinct was to ask how this girl dared to make such a request of one such as her, and threaten immediate execution, or failing that, imprisonment in a cocoon. Chrysalis instead tried to smile—something that for some reason elicited a horrified wince from sweater-girl—as she reached into her bag. Celestia had bought her a full set of twelve pencils when they went shopping for school supplies, and Chrysalis saw no harm in letting a peer borrow one.

“Thanks,” whispered sweater-girl as she took it. Chrysalis returned her attention to her test saying nothing. She heard the sound of sweater-girl writing with the loaned pencil for a few seconds before she stopped. There was a pregnant pause before Chrysalis heard sweater-girl whisper again, “Hey! You got an eraser?”

Chrysalis did, but unlike with the pencil, she only had the one. This time, she nearly did threaten the girl into leaving her alone before she remembered why she was here in school with a bunch of human foals in the first place. So seeing no reason not to let sweater-girl borrow her one and only eraser, she handed it over without complaint.

“Thanks,” sweater-girl whispered again, and Chrysalis returned to her own test to the sound of overzealous erasing next to her. The sound of pencil on paper resumed, followed by another pause, and another rubbing of eraser on paper.

Chrysalis was beginning to think she wouldn’t be getting her eraser back any time soon and hoped she wouldn’t make any mistakes until then.

“Psst, hey!” Another whisper from sweater-girl. “You got the answer to question one?”

Chrysalis gripped her pencil tightly. Surely a request to accommodate cheating was grounds enough to threaten violence upon her mortal body?

Ms. Fossil, however, beat Chrysalis to the punch. “That had better be the wind I’m hearing, Ms. Scootaloo, because if it’s actually the sound of your whispering, it’ll be your third detention of the month!”

Sweater-girl—or Scootaloo—remained quiet for the rest of the test’s duration. Eventually, time ran out, and Chrysalis had filled in as much as she could. Even with Celestia’s tutoring, there was still far too much she had to learn, especially in regard to human history.

After everyone had handed in their test, Ms. Fossil started her lecture for the class, and Chrysalis couldn’t find an opportunity to ask for her eraser back, focused as she was on taking notes on the lesson. There was a moment when Ms. Fossil was cleaning off the chalk board that Chrysalis thought was the perfect opportunity to get her stuff back. But when she turned to whisper to her desk neighbor, Chrysalis found her with her head down, softly snoring.

Eventually the class came to an end, and Chrysalis decided now is when she would finally get her stuff back. But one glance at Scootaloo’s desk confirmed that she was long gone, having apparently mastered the art of leaving the classroom the instant the bell rang. Putting her books into her backpack as quickly as possible, Chrysalis rushed out the door to catch her. She only caught a glimpse of unkempt purple hair before it disappeared into the crowd, taking her only eraser with it.

Chrysalis’s next class was math. It wasn’t exactly her strong suit, but she had a much better grasp of it than she had on human history. As luck would have it, math tended to work the same no matter what universe you were in, and Chrysalis had found that understanding it was a necessity as queen of the changelings. Send a unit of five-hundred changelings to take out an Equestrian military outpost taking seventy-five casualties, then that means she had four-hundred and twenty-five changelings left to take out the next outpost. Simple stuff.

Still, Chrysalis lamented not having an eraser. They were learning quadratic formulas in this math class, which was a bit tougher than your basic addition and subtraction. She would definitely make mistakes here.

Wait a minute… Chrysalis thought half an hour and several mistakes into the class. She was idly rubbing her thumb against the pink end of her pencil and found it surprisingly soft. A moment of inspiration struck, and with the careful curiosity of a scientist experimenting with a dangerous solution, she turned the pencil around and began rubbing at one of the crossed out numbers on her page.

“Ah-HA!” Chrysalis shouted, perhaps louder than she intended if the startled and confused stares from the entire rest of the class were anything to go by.

“Something you’d like to share with the class, Ms. Chrysalis?” asked the teacher, a rather cranky old man named Mr. Kibbitz.

Delighted that he was giving her a chance to share her discovery with the rest of her peers, Chrysalis stood from her seat and held her pencil aloft with a proud grin.

“This pencil… it has an eraser on its other end!” she proclaimed confidently. Surely with a discovery like this, others will flock to me!

Instead, the other students all started laughing, and Chrysalis suddenly found herself getting very hot standing there at the center of their mirth.

“Great. Another comedian,” Mr. Kibbitz groaned, rolling his eyes. “Don’t think you can go disrupting my class just because it’s your first day. Do it again and you will be getting detention.”

Chrysalis slumped back into her seat as Mr. Kibbitz tried to get the class under control. She wanted nothing more than to scurry into a dark hole at that very moment, and for the first time in her life, it wasn’t because of her changeling instincts.

Done with putting her textbooks away in her locker, Chrysalis shut it, locked it and started making her way towards the cafeteria. Contrary to popular belief, changelings did not subsist purely on love. They needed it to fuel their magic, and strong enough love was capable of satiating them enough to stave off the need to eat for a time. But at the end of the day, they still needed food just like any other living thing. Even were that not the case, Chrysalis wasn’t exactly one-hundred percent changeling.

Thus, it was lunch time and Chrysalis was starving.

“Excuse me,” a soft, high-pitched voice said just behind her.

Chrysalis turned around and saw a pretty young girl with curly pink and purple hair, wearing a white shirt with pink stripes and a green skirt that matched her eyes. “You’re the new girl, right?” she asked.

“Who wants to know?” Chrysalis said suspiciously, before once again reminding herself that not everyone who started a conversation with her was looking to overthrow her as ruler of the changelings.

If the other girl noticed her tone, she was not bothered by it. “I have somebody here who wants to give you something.”

Chrysalis was momentarily puzzled. Was it customary for new students to receive offerings from their peers? She then noticed that the girl talking to her wasn’t alone. Standing behind her a little to the side was a familiar girl with messy purple hair, gray sweater, and bandaged nose. She then held up a familiar pencil and eraser.

“Sorry I didn’t give back your stuff earlier,” Scootaloo said, firmly avoiding making eye contact.

“Oh, right. It was no problem,” Chrysalis said, taking the items back. “I have plenty of pencils, and it turns out those pink things on the end are erasers.”

At that, Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Ha ha, very funny. Look, I didn’t get much sleep last night, okay?”

“Probably up playing videogames all night again, right?” the other girl said, and Scootaloo’s lack of a response confirmed it. “Thought so.” She then turned to Chrysalis. “Anyway, I’m Sweetie Belle.”

“Chrysalis.”

“Well, I’m sorry for my friend’s behavior, Chrysalis. I knew something was wrong when she showed up to our class with her own pencil.” Sweetie ignored the indignant look from Scootaloo as she continued, “So, how are you liking it here so far?”

Chrysalis looked around, her gaze falling on the hodgepodge of adolescents of all shapes and sizes before resting on the unlikely pair of friends in front of her again. “It’s… different.”

Sweetie Belle’s big green eyes looked at her sympathetically “Yeah, going to a new school is always a little weird. I still remember when me and my friends came here from across the field.”

Across the field? Chrysalis had absolutely no idea what that meant. Was it some sort of slang that she hadn’t found on the internet, or was it an actual reference to something?

“Anyway,” Sweetie continued, oblivious to her thoughts. “If you ever need anything, you be sure to let us know, okay?”

Considering what Sweetie had just done for her, Chrysalis knew they weren’t just empty words, as small as the gesture was. So, Chrysalis did her best to smile.

“Well, it’s nice to know I have one from across the field on my side!”

Sweetie Belle looked at her with clear puzzlement before she let out a girlish giggle. “You’re weird!”

Chrysalis’s eyes bugged out. “Fool! You dare speak to me this way?!”

The response was instinctive, born from centuries of being addressed with nothing short of reverence from her subjects. Only her enemies spoke to her with the words and tone as the girl in front of her did. Less than a second later, Chrysalis remembered that she was no longer a queen and noted the clear jovial tone in the other girl’s voice. She felt mortified as Sweetie Belle—who had been nothing but kind to her since they met—immediately took a step back.

“I… I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said meekly.

“C’mon, Sweetie. Let’s get something to eat,” Scootaloo said, taking her friend by the arm and leading her away. “You’re right: she is weird!” Scootaloo said it far less jovially than Sweetie did. Although she was talking to Sweetie Belle, her hard gaze was directed straight at Chrysalis.

Before she even had a chance to explain herself, the two were walking away. Sweetie Belle looked over her shoulder, looking about to apologize (for a faux-pas that wasn’t even her fault) but a firm tug from Scootaloo kept her walking away. Chrysalis heard a bit of their conversation as they walked away.

“That was rude, Scoots!”

“C’mon, you heard her. She was talking crazy. Sounded like a goddamn villain!”

Groaning, Chrysalis rubbed her forehead. For a moment there, she thought she had made her first friends at this strange place. Instead, she had just alienated them.

Once a Queen, always a Queen, some voice deep inside her said. Chrysalis told the little voice to shove it but couldn’t deny its truth. All she wanted was to just live life as a normal kid. Why were her old habits so hard to kick?

Upon entering the cafeteria, Chrysalis was greeted with the sight of a familiar head of red and yellow hair among the veritable rainbow of colours lined up to fill their trays with food. The familiarity was a welcome reprieve from the unending amount of strangers, and Chrysalis gave her a friendly wave as she grabbed a tray and got in line. The girl waved back, and after filling her own tray with the day’s food, went over to her.

“Hey Chrysalis,” Sunset Shimmer greeted with a friendly smile. “First day going alright? Make any new friends yet?”

Chrysalis glanced over at a nearby table, where she saw the three girls she’d met throughout the day all sitting together. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle laughed at some joke Scootaloo made, who glanced briefly in her direction—accidentally, it would seem. At least, if the speed at which she glowered and looked away was any indication.

“It’s… a work in progress,” Chrysalis answered.

With an encouraging pat on the arm, Sunset said, “Hey, don’t get discouraged. It wasn’t too long ago that I was where you are now.”

Chrysalis nodded. “Lost in a strange world surrounded by strange people?”

“When I first came here, yeah. But there’s something else I didn’t tell you about me.” Sunset said, taking a breath. Chrysalis detected a hint of reluctance to talk further, but Sunset pressed on for her sake. “I used to be a bit of a tyrant around here. Made enemies at every turn. Had underlings instead of friends. I ruined a lot of lives at this school, and some still haven’t forgiven me for it.”

“Hmm. That sounds familiar,” Chrysalis said with a frown.

“I thought it might. Things are different for me now though, as you probably gathered. Took a long time, but the school came around to me.” Finally allowing herself to breathe again, Sunset gave her an encouraging smile. “If I could do it, so can you!”

Chrysalis couldn’t quite match her optimism. “My rap sheet is considerably longer and far more grisly than yours.”

“Perhaps, but you have an advantage that I didn’t,” Sunset said, and when Chrysalis responded with an inquisitive head tilt, she leaned forward and whispered, “A clean slate. You can truly be anyone you want to be here: your past is not today.”

With a roll of her eyes, Chrysalis said, “Wow. I’ve fought scores of knights and heroes who never said anything that cheesy.”

With a shrug, Sunset turned and started heading for a table where her other friends were already seated. “Just saying. I would have killed to get the second chance you’ve got!”

Chrysalis tilted her head. “Really? Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of a second chance?”

Sunset laughed. “It’s just an expression, Chrysalis!”

With that, Sunset was gone, and Chrysalis had acquired food for her tray. Now, she needed to find somewhere to sit. She briefly considered asking Sunset if she could join her and her friends for lunch, but ultimately decided against it. It was like Sunset just said: this was her chance to start with a clean slate. So, she looked around the cafeteria for a table with an empty spot.

She walked straight past a table crowded with burly boys in sports attire, two of which were locked in an arm-wrestling match. That wouldn’t do even if there was room for her to sit. Another table held a group of boys and girls who looked closer to her own age. This lot was at the opposite end of the spectrum to the boys of the previous table: lanky and awkward with acne-ridden faces. They were playing with some sort of cards featuring depictions of creatures and symbols that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Equestria. One of them—a particularly skinny girl with frizzy red hair and huge glasses—happened to lock eyes with her and instantly shrank into her seat. Intentionally or no, Chrysalis’s gaze remained as terrifying as ever.

Finally, Chrysalis found her gaze falling on the three girls at their table. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were alone, and there was plenty of room for another person to join them. This would be the perfect opportunity for Chrysalis to apologize for the misunderstanding earlier, and if they happened to let her sit with them, all the better.

She took a step toward them, but heard a voice call out next to her.

“Hey, new girl!”

Chrysalis looked over to her left and saw another table with three girls seated. They were each dressed fashionably in pinks and purples, and Chrysalis realized she’d noticed them during her confrontation with Neighsay. One of them, a girl with pale violet hair with a white streak, pulled out the chair beside her.

“You can sit with us if you want,” she said with a friendly smile.

Chrysalis took another look at the table with the other three girls she’d met today. Now both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were shooting suspicious glances in her direction, and Chrysalis ultimately took the offered seat at the far more welcoming table next to her.

“Don’t worry, you made the right choice,” the girl who offered the seat said. “Trust me, you don’t want to hang out with those girl scouts.”

“Yeah, they’re total spazzes, but you probably noticed that, huh?” said the girl with white-gray hair and blue-rimmed glasses sitting across from her.

“Golly, not like you, though!” said the third girl at the table. She had soft pale blue hair curled into little rolls, and gave Chrysalis such a sweet smile it almost made her feel ill. “You were cold as ice the way you told off Mr. Neighsay this morning! Poor man… he must have been fuming all day!” The girl’s sweet but no less enthusiastic smile seemed to indicate that despite her words, she was far from pitying him.

“Yeah, I like your style,” said the girl who initially offered her a seat. She then extended her hand. “I’m Diamond Tiara. The girl with the stylin’ glasses over there is my bestie Silver Spoon, and the girl that tastes like diabetes next to her is Cozy Glow. She’s new to our little group too.”

Remembering what Celestia taught her about proper manners (and these girls did seem a fair amount more proper than their peers) Chrysalis gave them her best smile, which once again seemed to set the other girls on edge. “I’m Chrysalis. The pleasure’s mine!”

“Pleasure to meet you, Chrysalis!” Cozy Glow exclaimed. “And may I just say, you have a very pretty smile.”

A compliment! Chrysalis gasped internally, while outwardly keeping her cool. The feeling filled her face with heat and her stomach with nervous butterflies (having eaten butterflies when rations were low at the hive, she never quite understood the turn of phrase). Not knowing what else to do, Chrysalis idly inspected her hand and gave a non-chalant, “Thanks.”

“Yeah, I love it! It really just screams ‘deranged serial killer’!”

“Christ, Cozy. You don’t have to roast the girl that bad!” Silver Spoon exclaimed (incidentally proving to Chrysalis that casual blaspheming was indeed the norm in this time).

“What? I meant it as a compliment!”

“So, Chrysalis,” Diamond Tiara said, elegantly digging into the pile of white rice on her tray. “Saw you talking to Sunset Shimmer earlier. You two know each other?”

Chrysalis nodded as she started to dig into her own lunch. “Yeah, we met in Klamath Falls. The one in Oregon. It’s where I lived before I moved here.”

Diamond Tiara nodded herself and Mmm-ed around the food in her mouth before swallowing. “You’re lucky. Being friendly with Sunset Shimmer is an enviable position. She’s kind of royalty around here.”

“That right?” Chrysalis had just found out that Sunset had recovered from a pretty bad reputation. Had she really turned it so far around that she was now queen of the hive…er, school?

“It’s no exaggeration. Turns out she’s a real, honest-to-God princess from, uh…what country was her birth mother from again?”

“France, I think,” Silver Spoon answered.

“Right.” Diamond Tiara took a sip of her Pepsi and returned her attention to Chrysalis. “Of course, her dynasty won’t last forever. In another year, Sunset and her friends will graduate. Then it will be up to us to run things around here, right girls?”

Silver and Cozy both nodded, grunting around the food in their mouths.

“Just stick with us, Chrysalis, and you’ll do okay for yourself.”

The rest of the day went rather well for Chrysalis, and it wasn’t just because she’d figured out the secret to the erasers at the end of her pencils. Having actual friends to talk to made the day seem to fly by. Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and Cozy Glow had a witty, if somewhat cruel sense of humor that Chrysalis certainly appreciated. What was more, she felt like she could actually be herself around them. Well, not her true self exactly, but they didn’t bat an eye when she said something weird. On the contrary, her certain… eccentricities seemed only to endear herself more to them. Before she knew it, the last bell of the day rang and she was heading home.

Celestia had taught her how to ride the bus the previous week, but Chrysalis had never ridden it by herself until today. It was inconsequential, and she made her way home easily enough. Celestia’s townhouse was empty when she arrived, as Sable and Celestia were both still at work. Mom and Dad.

It was weird to think of the two of them as her parents, even though for all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what they were to her now. She had only known them for a couple of weeks, and although they had proven to be very kind and caring individuals, Chrysalis couldn’t help but keep them at arm’s length. It wasn’t that she was ungrateful to them for taking her in—quite the contrary, Chrysalis still wasn’t sure how she’d been fortunate enough to end up in their care. After everything she’d done in Equestria, she still wasn’t sure she deserved this life.

Chrysalis pushed those thoughts aside as she plopped down on the couch and turned on the TV. She would get to her homework after today’s episode of Spongebob Squarepants.

Hours later, Chrysalis had completed her math and history assignments and came out of her room. Celestia and Sable were already home, and Sable was preparing dinner, which Chrysalis offered to help him with. Sable assured her that he had everything under control, so Chrysalis went to watch TV with Celestia until Sable called them to eat.

“So, your first day at school go well?” Sable asked when they were all around the table.

Chrysalis was getting tired of answering that question, truth be told, but answered with a pleasant, “It was fine. I enjoyed myself more than I expected to.”

Sable smiled. “Don’t feel the need to sugar-coat it too much. First days at a new school are always a little rough.”

“No, really. I’ve already made some friends,” then with an earnest smile that surprised even her, Chrysalis said, “I’m looking forward to going back tomorrow!”

At that, Celestia laughed. “Well, just give it time. Soon, I bet you’ll hate going to school as much as every kid your age.”

“Perhaps, but….” Chrysalis gave a wistful sigh. “I’ll always be happy to have had the chance to go in the first place. For so many years I… never thought I would ever get to do anything like this. It’s so... normal.”

After a tasty dinner full of light chatter, Chrysalis and Celestia cleaned up and then the three of them sat down to watch a movie. After returning from Equestria, Sable and Celestia made an effort to acquire copies of as many important movies as they could. Some came from their own collections, while others they borrowed from friends, including Twilight Velvet, who had a dozen Disney movies collecting dust from when her kids were young.

It was all part of their effort to get Chrysalis as caught up on human popular culture as she could, so she could better fit in at school, but it was also Chrysalis’s favorite part of her day. Humans had a knack for creating visually spectacular stories that immersed her unlike any in Equestria ever had. She’d already watched Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, and many others that were considered to be iconic.

“So what do you want to watch tonight, Chrys?” Sable asked, looking through his and Celestia combined collection of DVDs. “There’s Die Hard—that’s one of my personal favorites—Jaws, the Matrix….”

Chrysalis’s eyes lit up when she saw that their collection had what appeared to be the sequel to her favorite movie they’d showed her thus far.

“That,” she said, pointing at it. “I would like to watch that!”

Sable took one look at it and then looked back at her. “You sure you don’t want to watch something else… anything else?”

The look of despair on Sable’s face was enough to make her certain of her choice, and she smirked. “I’ve made my decision.”

Sable let out a long-suffering sigh, eliciting playful laughter from Celestia. Chrysalis decided to seal the deal with her best puppy dog eyes. “Pleeeeease?”

With another sigh, Sable took out the DVD in question and put it into the player. “Alright, one showing of High School Musical 2, coming up!”

Usually, Chrysalis preferred to sit by herself in the easy chair while Celestia and Sable shared the couch, but this time, she decided to squeeze onto the couch between them. A knowing look passed between the two (physiologically) older people, but they said nothing as the movie began to play. Chrysalis found herself once again lost in another world.

They’d showed her the first High School Musical (a relic from Velvet’s collection, along with the sequel) not because of its importance to popular culture, but to give her an idea of what to expect when she started school. They had, of course, informed her that real high school wouldn’t be quite like the one in the movie. For starters, students didn’t break into random musical numbers (something Chrysalis didn’t quite understand; spontaneous musical numbers were relatively common in Equestria).

Eventually, the credits rolled on the movie, and Sable turned it off with the speed and precision of a gunslinger in the old west.

“Well, I’m gonna get a little grading done, then I’m going to bed,” said Sable, getting up from the couch.

“Thank you,” Chrysalis said.

Sable shrugged, “It’s alright. I actually kind of enjoyed it.”

“I wasn’t talking about the movie,” Chrysalis said, turning her gaze to Celestia sitting next to her. “I was talking about both of you. You’ve given me so much, and… I’m sorry that I’ve been keeping you both at arm’s length.”

Celestia smiled and rubbed her back, and to Chrysalis’s own surprise, she didn’t shrink away from the touch. “You have nothing to apologize for. You’ve been through a lot, and all of this change must be difficult for you. I just hope you know that you can always come to Sable or myself about… well, whatever’s on your mind. We’re here for you.”

Chrysalis felt an uncomfortable pressure building from her chest to her throat. Hearing those words triggered something deep inside her, and Chrysalis found herself not merely accepting Celestia’s touch, but leaning into it. A few moments later, she remembered herself and cleared her throat.

“Well, I should probably get ready for bed,” she said, surprisingly finding it a struggle to keep her voice steady. “School night and all that.”

“Right. Goodnight, Chrysalis.”

“Good night… Celestia.”

With that, Chrysalis made her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth, trying not to think about the fact that for a brief moment, her instinct was to call Celestia “Mom”. That was something she couldn’t quite do yet. Not consciously at least. There was still too much baggage associated with both Celestia and Sable’s Equestrian versions for Chrysalis to feel entirely at ease with them. It wasn’t fair to them, she knew, but she just couldn’t help it.

Her teeth brushed, Chrysalis went to her bedroom with the same sense of unease in her stomach she had every night before bed. Would she have another nightmare tonight? Or would this be one of her few nights of peaceful rest?

The other week she’d spoken with Celestia’s friend Twilight Velvet, who called it an “unofficial counseling session”. Chrysalis hadn’t opened up about much, but did mention the nightmares that had plagued her since returning to the human world. Nightmares about King Sombra, and the horrible things he did to her when she was his slave. She also occasionally dreamed about being the queen of the changelings, which was only a marginal improvement over her other ones. Velvet told her that such nightmares were perfectly normal for a child suffering PTSD, and told her to speak to a professional (or at least, one who wasn’t as close to the situation as she was) if they got any worse.

But when Chrysalis finally drifted off into slumber that night, she didn’t dream about being tortured or about being trapped by the hive mind. She dreamt of being in a soft velvety bed in the forehooves of a princely unicorn stallion. She couldn’t make him out in the darkness of the chamber, but it could only be Shining Armor—the Royal Guard captain she had seduced and brainwashed in the guise of his fiancé as part of her plan to take over Canterlot.

She felt warm and safe in his embrace, but in the hazy confusion of a person unaware that they were dreaming, Chrysalis tried to push herself away from him. This wasn’t who she was anymore, and she would not come between the stallion and the mare he loved.

“What’s wrong, my love?” he asked, and hearing his voice, Chrysalis realized that it wasn’t Shining Armor, but a stallion she’d never met before.

“We can’t do this anymore,” she said. “What if the nobility finds out? They would have your head!”

“I don’t care about that anymore,” said the stallion that she loved. “If I should die tomorrow, I will have been happy simply having been with you!”

“Do not say such things!” she pleaded, perfectly understanding her feelings even though she didn’t understand what they were talking about. “Lord Briarthorn has already declared his intentions to marry me. You know as well as I do that he cares not for me as an individual.”

“I swear to you, I will not let him lay a hoof on you.”

Chrysalis brought a hoof up to caress the face of her lover. “I know, Sunburst.”

Sunburst smiled, took her hoof and kissed it. “Let’s not worry about these matters for now, Calyx. Let us just enjoy this moment.”

Chrysalis awoke the next morning without giving the strange dream a second thought. She was just happy to have gotten a good night’s sleep.

Chapter 2 - The Bad Seed

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It was the Friday of Chrysalis’s first week of school, and this time it was Sable who was dropping her off at Canterlot High. As it turned out, it was much more convenient for him to do it than it was for Celestia, as the latter seemed to be going into work earlier and earlier. Also, Canterlot High was slightly less out of the way for Sable heading to the school where he worked than it was for Celestia going to her downtown office. Chrysalis appreciated the ride, as it took less time than taking the bus, but even so...it was awkward.

It wasn’t always completely silent, though. Today, for instance, Chrysalis was in a good enough mood to talk about her plans for the weekend.

“My friends invited me to come with them to Olde Towne San Palomino tomorrow,” Chrysalis said. “I’ve never been to a ‘shopping center’ before, but apparently it’s like a great market square!”

Sable chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll have a great time.”

Then just like that, the awkward silence resumed as they continued to drive along. It wasn’t that Chrysalis disliked Sable, and her taste buds didn’t pick up any feelings of hostility on his end either. Nevertheless, it was hard to look at him without remembering the other Sable Loam. He had been more beast than pony, and was one of many who served under King Sombra only to satisfy their own dark, twisted desires. And that was exactly what the infamous werewolf lieutenant had done the few times she had “crossed paths” with him.

But Chrysalis knew that this Sable Loam was nothing like that monster. Everything about him, from the timbre of his voice to the way he carried himself, was completely unlike the rabid animal who had been King Sombra's lieutenant. Mostly, things between Chrysalis and the Sable who was her guardian were only awkward because neither one really knew what to say to the other.

Part of Chrysalis wondered whether Sable did resent her, if only a little. After all, it had been Celestia who had wanted to take her in and raise her. From what Chrysalis understood, Sable and Celestia hadn’t been dating very long—a year at most. There’s no way he would have expected that he would be raising a troubled teenager when they started, and Chrysalis couldn’t help but wonder whether her intrusion was putting a strain on their relationship.

Nobody ever wanted you before, the little voice in her head told her. What makes him any different?

“Hello? Chrys?”

Chrysalis realized that she’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed Sable had said something to her.

“Sorry, did you say something, Sable?” she asked.

Sable nodded past her out the passenger side window. “We’re here.”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Chrysalis said, looking out the window to see that they had pulled up alongside the curb in front of the school. Opening the passenger side door, Chrysalis thanked Sable for the ride and got out.

A sizable throng of students were making their way to the front doors, and Chrysalis spotted familiar heads of pink and gray hair. As she made her way toward them, Chrysalis had this sudden nagging feeling that she was forgetting something.

“’Sup Di. Spoony,” Chrysalis greeted casually, and Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon turned to greet her with the same nonchalance.

“Ugh, T-G-I-F,” Diamond Tiara groaned. Silver Spoon gave a slight nod, her eyes barely open under her glasses.

“Yes, tigiff,” Chrysalis replied, not really understanding what her friend was saying but going along with it anyway. It earned a chuckle from Diamond and Silver, so Chrysalis assumed she said something right.

“Hey, the girls and I like to get milkshakes at the Sugarcube Corner Café on Fridays,” Diamond said. “You wanna come?”

“Milkshakes sound good, yeah,” Chrysalis said. She’d never had one, but they sounded good!

“Cool.”

Chrysalis spotted the light blue rolls of Cozy Glow’s hair through the crowd. Intriguingly enough, she wasn’t alone. She was walking next to a boy with brown hair wearing a colorful propeller ballcap. No, she wasn’t merely walking next to him: she was outright leaning into him.

“Golly gee, Button. There’s playing hard to get, and then there’s outright dense,” Cozy said with an eerily cheerful giggle. “It’s a good thing you’re cute!”

The boy in the weird hat with the word PROPELLERHEADS on it—Button, if Chrysalis heard right—tried desperately to buy himself some breathing room from the clingy girl. “Cozy, I’m not playing hard to get. I-I’m telling you—”

Cozy placed a finger over the boy’s mouth and let it linger there. “Ah ah ah! Not another word from you. Saturday. Three o’clock. Olde Towne. Okay?”

“B-but Sweetie and I were going to….”

“See you there!” Cozy called out as she finally broke off from the rather flustered boy to go join up with Chrysalis and the others.

“Got yourself a date?” Diamond Tiara asked, glancing in the boy’s direction.

“Yes indeedy, sweetie!” Cozy exclaimed with what was probably the most genuine smile Chrysalis had seen on her face since meeting her.

“I don’t know what you see in that weird nerd, but whatev,” Silver Spoon said dismissively. “You do you, girl.”

“Love isn’t just about status, Spoony,” Cozy said, happily (Chrys could taste it) patting Silver’s head. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“We’re the same age!”

Of all the kids that Chrysalis had met in her first week at school, Cozy was the one that perplexed her the most. She was pleasant enough, Chrysalis supposed, and there was enough sugary sweetness oozing from her every word to feed an entire hive. That was just the thing, though: Chrysalis tasted nothing from her. While Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon sometimes radiated feelings of affection with a sour aftertaste, Cozy Glow didn’t give off anything. It was as if something inside the girl was broken, and it set Chrysalis on edge. In Equestria, she’d discovered that ponies without emotions were more than just poor meals: they were dangerous.

Chrysalis had thought that Cozy was just like those ponies, but now things were different. She could actually taste a good amount of affection from Cozy Glow now. Perhaps Cozy was just having an off week?

It was then that Chrysalis realized the source of the nagging feeling earlier: she felt much lighter going into school than she usually did.

“Chrys! Hey Chrys!” Sable Loam’s voice called out.

Chrysalis turned and saw the big man jogging up the path from the sidewalk to the main entrance, his car still idling by the curb. In his hand was a familiar backpack, its absence from her back being the source of her nagging feeling.

“You’ll be needing this, right?” he asked when he caught up with her.

Diamond, Silver and Cozy giggled girlishly and Chrysalis could feel herself turning an undignified shade of red. She didn’t know why, but Sable being on campus with her just felt wrong, and she wanted him gone as soon as possible before too many people saw.

“Right, thanks,” Chrysalis said, hastily taking the backpack and slinging it over one shoulder.

“Ooh, is this your dad?” Silver Spoon asked, suddenly wide awake and looking Sable up and down.

“Um, I guess?” Chrysalis said.

“You guess?” Diamond asked.

Sable nodded. “I’m her legal guardian, Sable Loam. And I take it you three are the friends she told me so much about?”

“Yeppers!” Cozy Glow chirped.

“Yep. All good things, I trust? I’m Diamond Tiara,” the girl in question said.

Cozy Glow introduced herself next with an all-too-sweet smile, and Silver Spoon actually took his hand in not one but both of hers, and actually pulled herself a little closer to him. “Silver Spoon. The pleasure’s all mine, Mr. Loam.”

“Uh, likewise.”

“Hey, what’s your sign?”

“My what?”

“Y’know, your star sign? When were you born?”

Sable tried to pull his hand away from Silver Spoon, but the girl held fast. “Uh, April. Why--?”

“Ooh, you’re an Aries. I’m a Gemini.” Silver Spoon bit her lip and batted her eyes. “They’re very compatible!”

Finally wrenching his hand free of Silver Spoon’s grip, Sable said, “I’m sure they are. Now, I’m going to be late for work, but it was nice meeting you girls. Have a good day, Chrys!”

With that, Sable made his retreat, Chrysalis waving him goodbye as Silver Spoon all too enthusiastically watched him leave. Chrysalis didn’t need to taste her emotions to know what she was feeling, and actively decided not to feed on them. Something about it just seemed wrong in this context.

“Jeez Spoony, I don’t think you were overt enough,” Diamond drolled.

“What? He was hot!” Silver exclaimed in her defense. “Not my fault Chrys has an absolute DILF.”

Chrysalis didn’t know what that meant, other than it was probably something lewd.

“Why can’t you just like guys our own age like a normal person?” Diamond asked.

“Yeah, you’re no longer allowed to criticize my tastes if that’s the kinda guy you go for!” Cozy added.

“Don’t hate me for my refined tastes!” Silver said, sticking her tongue out before turning her attention to Chrysalis. “So, how are things between him and your mom? Any chance I could cut in?”

“Shut up, Spoony,” Chrysalis said, lightly whapping the girl in the arm.

“C’mon, wouldn’t it be fun to have me as your new mom? That way, both of us get to call him Daddy!”

Chrysalis just whapped her again, slightly harder this time.

“Remind me to hose you down later,” Diamond Tiara said.

As her friends continued to bicker, Chrysalis couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that they were all able to refer to Sable and Celestia (despite not knowing that she was her other guardian) as her mom and dad. They made it look so easy.

When lunchtime rolled around, Sable Loam wasted no time hopping into his car and driving to the restaurant where he and his master chief petty officer would be having their little lunch meeting. Troubleshoes was good for his offer to talk over personal matters as friends, but it was Sable’s schedule that kept them from being able to meet all week until today. His lunch hour this week was always spent grading the assignments that he didn’t have time for after classes, owing to his need to manage SIREN affairs. The crunch was nothing he couldn’t handle, but it was definitely starting to take its toll. He was beginning to feel like he did a couple of months ago, before he’d hired Troubleshoes to shoulder some of the weight of SIREN.

In no time at all, Sable arrived at his destination, and he was greeted by the familiar sight of the large faux windmill looming over the parking lot of Windmills Diner and Bakery. It was funny that he had just been thinking about the time he’d hired Troubleshoes, as this very place was where the idea first came into his head.

Upon entering the establishment, Sable saw that Troubleshoes hadn’t arrived yet, so he grabbed a table, ordered a coffee and waited. Several minutes later, Troubleshoes came in the door and spotted him.

“Sorry if I’m late. Been having equipment trouble down at Hard Luck,” Troubleshoes said as he sat down. He then took a look at the restaurant around him. “Been a while since we came here.”

“Yeah. I know it’s only been a couple of months, but it feels longer,” Sable said.

“Considering how much has changed for both of us since then, it feels like a different lifetime.”

Sable gave an affirmative grunt. The past six months alone were such a whirlwind of change he could barely believe he had ever lived his life unentwined with Celestia, or even Sunset Shimmer. It was no wonder he was struggling to adapt to the change that brought him here.

The waitress came by and took both of their orders, and then they got down to…well, not business exactly. But the reason they were here sure felt that way.

“So, how are you finding being a father?” asked Troubleshoes with the hint of a grin.

Sable just sighed. “Feels like I haven’t slept since I got back.”

Troubleshoes laughed. “Yeah, that’s about how it goes. Just be thankful you missed the Terrible Twos. Or the crying into all hours of the night.”

Sable decided not to mention there’d been a bit of that. Chrysalis didn’t have nightmares every night, but there were plenty of times that he and Celestia would be awoken in the early morning hours to the sounds of anguish from the other room. Celestia would usually be the one to go comfort her, but after a while it was clear his girlfriend just needed to sleep, so Sable volunteered to check on their ward.

It was a painfully awkward affair whenever he did. Chrysalis would often be trembling and crying; receding into a place within herself so deep and dark she was barely cognisant of his presence. The first time, Sable had tried to comfort her with a hand on her shoulder, but that only drove her into hysterical panic and she’d instinctively spat slimy green bile in his direction—she’d sheepishly apologized after coming to her senses and fortunately changeling ichor didn’t require hazardous waste disposal. Still, every time since, Sable had simply sat next to her on the side of her bed and waited until she calmed down enough to ask her if she needed anything. Sometimes she asked for a glass of water, but most times she just asked him to leave. While Chrysalis had managed to open up a fair amount to Celestia, it was clear that she just wasn’t entirely comfortable around him yet.

“To be honest with you, I don’t think I’m ready for this,” Sable said.

“Like I said, that’s about how it goes,” Troubleshoes replied. “You think any parent is ever really ready?”

“That’s just the thing. I don’t…feel like I’m a parent to her. Right now, she’s just…she’s just this stranger who started living with us.”

Troubleshoes frowned. “You don’t feel any connection to her at all?”

“No, I do,” Sable said quickly enough. “Don’t get me wrong, I care about her. She saved Celestia’s life when some maniac took her hostage. And then when we found out everything she’d been through, I wanted to help her just as much as Celestia did.” Sable paused to figure out how to put his thoughts into words. “I guess…I’m starting to have doubts about whether I’m the right person to help her.”

“If you ask me, you’ve got it backwards: You’re the best person I can think of to help that girl.”

“How so?”

Troubleshoes looked at him evenly. “The triplets.”

Sable exhaled. “That’s different.”

“How so? Those three girls had been through hell too, and you didn’t hesitate to take them under your wing. From what they told me, the admiral of SIREN is a father figure to the girls under his command, and they certainly look up to you as one.”

“Chrysalis was never in the military, Troubleshoes. I can’t treat her like I treat the triplets. I want her to have a normal life for a girl her age, not just the next best thing.”

Troubleshoes smiled. “Yeah. That right there proves you are without a doubt the right person to help her. You just need to be patient. You remember how long it took Tirespin to open up to me?” Sable nodded. “All you need to do is keep showing her that you care about her, and she’ll come around just like Tires eventually did.”

It was at that moment that the waitress came by and dropped off their food, and the two men began to dig in.

“To tell you the truth, it’s not just getting her to open up that I’ve been worried about,” Sable said after they’d been eating in silence for a few minutes. Troubleshoes had his mouth full of the burger he was eating but gestured for Sable to elaborate.

So Sable did. “Chrysalis…she’s more than just a traumatized child. You know how they say that abuse is cyclical? She’s living proof.”

“Right, I think you mentioned she was a real dangerous enemy before you and Celestia took her in.”

“She was the dangerous enemy. The ponies over there mentioned her in the same tone we’d talk about Der Fuhrer or Il Duce.” Sable let out a sigh. “It just…hits me sometimes that this quiet, reserved young girl is a murderer and war criminal the likes of which we’ve never seen on this planet.”

Troubleshoes let out a breath and shook his head. “Now that, I can honestly say I have no advice for. Tirespin’s rebellious phase got pretty bad, but never ‘committing war crimes’ bad.”

“Make no mistake, I don’t think she’s about to start murdering people by the dozen or anything like that. But this is a person who’s spent so many years of her long life doing so much evil….”

“You think she might begin starting trouble?” Troubleshoes, and when Sable gave a very emphatic nod, Troubleshoes said, “Well, if that’s the case, my original advice still stands.”

“Show her that I care?” Sable asked.

“That’s right,” said Troubleshoes. “And sometimes showing your child that you care means straightening them out as needed.”

The school day passed without incident, and when the final bell rang, Chrysalis and her friends headed to the Sugarcube Corner Café. After about a week of hanging out with the three girls, Chrysalis was feeling comfortable enough to talk more openly about her interests. So, when the topic of good movies they’d seen recently came up, Chrysalis all too eagerly spoke up.

“Have any of you watched High School Musical?”

Diamond shrugged. “Once, when I was a kid.”

Chrysalis’s eyes lit up. “I just watched them for the first time this last week. Aren’t they great? The first one really got me excited to come to this school for the first time!”

She was about to go on about her favorite songs when she realized Diamond and the others were all laughing.

“Oh my God! Tell me you’re not serious!” Silver Spoon laughed.

“Those are kids’ movies, Chrysalis,” Diamond cackled.

“Golly, how could someone as scary-looking as you be such a child?” giggled Cozy Glow.

The four of them often ragged on each other good-heartedly. Chrysalis had learned early on that it was just the way these three interacted. But something about their laughter now tasted just a little too real to Chrysalis, and she found herself looking away.

“Uh, I was joking. Obviously,” Chrysalis said, in her heart apologizing to Zucchini Effluence. “I like those movies…ironically.”

“Oh good,” Silver Spoon said, still catching her breath from the laughter. “For a second there I thought we were gonna have to stage an intervention!”

They continued their way to the Corner, joking and gossiping. All except Chrysalis, who remained quiet. Why was she so upset about this anyway? They were just dumb movies. Dumb movies that brought her joy during a difficult and uncertain time in her life, but still.

Chrysalis forgot all about it once they entered the Corner. Her attention was immediately drawn to Diamond Tiara’s hateful scowl across the establishment, and the bitter feelings that came with it.

“Those bitches….”

Following her gaze, Chrysalis spotted the source of Diamond Tiara’s ire: a trio of familiar girls were all seated in a booth in the far corner of…well, the Corner. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo seemed to be simply drinking milkshakes and minding their own business, but Diamond Tiara looked at them like they’d just done something obscene.

“C’mon girls. Looks like a certain group of losers needs to be reminded of the pecking order,” Diamond Tiara said before closing in on the trio around the table.

Silver and Cozy fell in line quickly, and not knowing what else to do, Chrysalis followed them. Looming over their table, Diamond Tiara cleared her throat. The other three girls, who looked to be having a good time moments prior, turned to look at their group with evaporating smiles.

“What do you want, Diamond Tiara?” Apple Bloom asked.

“You’re in our spot.”

“Your spot?” Apple Bloom asked incredulously. “What do you mean your spot? This is a public restaurant.”

“Yeah!” Scootaloo added around a mouthful of donut.

“Not sure if you’ve noticed, but we sit here every Friday,” Silver Spoon said.

“So? There’s plenty of other tables for you to sit at,” Sweetie Belle said, trying to be reasonable.

“But this one’s got the best wifi in this dump—the router’s probably right on the other side of the wall—which I can’t help but notice you three aren’t making use of,” Diamond Tiara said. “Now, are you gonna be reasonable and move?”

“There’s plenty of other tables for you to sit at,” Cozy Glow mimicked Sweetie’s voice, mocking her with a sweet smile.

“Or what? You sluts gonna make us?” Scootaloo asked, taking a confident sip of her milkshake.

Diamond Tiara exchanged a look and a grin with Silver Spoon and Cozy Glow. The three of them then each grabbed one of the milkshakes in front of the other three girls and started walking away. Chrysalis could only watch as the situation spiraled out of control after that.

“Hey!” shouted Apple Bloom, climbing out of the booth.

“Give those back!” Sweetie Belle cried as she and Scootaloo did the same.

“Those’re ours! We paid for ‘em!”

Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and Cozy Glow set the milkshakes down at a nearby empty table and stepped aside (but not before Diamond sampled a bit of Apple Bloom’s shake). Cozy Glow even pulled out a chair with a courteous flourish. Without thinking, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo raced over to collect their absconded shakes…allowing Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and Cozy Glow to take the unguarded booth.

Chrysalis didn’t even bat an eye at the cold cruelty of her friends, though with the benefit of hindsight she’d come to realize she should have said something. Presently though, Chrysalis simply went along with it. While Sunset Shimmer was the unquestioned queen of the school, Chrysalis had observed that Diamond Tiara was the queen of the junior years. As a former queen herself, Chrysalis understood that sometimes you had to kick a few asses to keep your kingdom running.

“Ugh, really Diamond?!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

Diamond Tiara didn’t even look at her, having already pulled out her pink phone. “I’ve got important emails to write, can’t talk. Ooh, and look at how fast the wifi is!”

With a growl, Scootaloo grabbed Diamond Tiara by the arm and tried to yank her out of the booth.

“Hey! Fuck off!” Diamond exclaimed, responding to Scootaloo with a harsh shove that actually made the girl stumble back into Sweetie Belle.

“Alright, that’s it!” Scootaloo said, rolling up her sweater’s sleeves. Chrysalis saw her throw a wild punch towards Diamond and decided right then that she was going to put a stop to this ridiculous feud.

With lightning-fast reflexes, Chrysalis caught Scootaloo’s wrist just before her punch connected, and pulled her arm back. Chrysalis was tall for her age. It was, she suspected, one of the reasons why most of her peers were so intimidated by her. Now, Chrysalis used that for all it was worth as she held Scootaloo by the wrist and glared down at her.

“That’s enough,” she said calmly, before releasing Scootaloo with a shove.

“That’s right, just sit down at the kiddie table,” Silver said behind her.

“Yeah, don’t let your ‘fiery Latina temper’ get the better of you,” Diamond Tiara said. “You have your bright future as somebody’s maid to consider!”

With that, Scootaloo launched into an all-out assault, actually managing to surprise Chrysalis with a sucker punch to the jaw. It was nothing more than a slight detour on her way to her main destination, and Chrysalis had to recover quickly so she could hold the feral girl back from doing the same thing to Diamond.

“SHOVE A SHAWARMA UP YOUR ASS YOU PLATE-SMASHING BITCH!!!” Scootaloo shouted at Diamond as Chrysalis desperately fought to hold her back.

“The fuck is going on here?!”

Everyone turned to see what appeared to be one of the restaurant’s servers: a young woman wearing glasses with short reddish-orange hair.

Immediately, Scootaloo stopped struggling and pointed at Chrysalis and her friends. “They took our—!”

But the server didn’t give her a chance to finish. “Oh, I saw what happened!” she then stepped closer and took a critical look at Chrysalis’s face. “Sit down, I’ll get you some ice for that.”

She then turned her attention to Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. “You three should leave.”

“But Rose, they started it!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“I don’t care who started it, okay?!” the server—Rose, apparently—said, raising her voice and pointing at Scootaloo. “She’s the one who threw a punch! Or did one of them hit first?”

“Well…no, but—”

“Then there’s nothing more to discuss. You’re lucky the Cakes aren’t here, or they’d be calling the cops right now!”

Rose glared at the three girls, the implication in her words clear. Now that everything was starting to cool down, Chrysalis noticed an awful lot of heads were turned in their direction. She wasn’t the only one who noticed, either.

“C’mon, Scoots. Let’s go,” Sweetie Belle said softly, taking her friend by the arm as she looked around with big, worried eyes. “They’re not worth it.”

There was a still beat where Chrysalis wondered whether Scootaloo would fly at her again. Instead, she turned around and walked out with her friends, abandoning their milkshakes on the table.

Satisfied that the situation was resolved, the server Rose went to the back room—likely to get ice for Chrysalis’s face, which was beginning to throb—and Chrysalis sat down in the hard-won booth with her friends. The three of them were giggling about something or other when she did.

“Nice work, Chrys,” Silver Spoon said with a nod of approval, her eyes drifting to the spot on her face where Chrysalis suspected a bruise was forming. “Hope that doesn’t hurt too bad.”

“Let’s just say I’ve been in worse fights.”

“Right. Sorry about that. I didn’t think things would get so far out of hand,” Diamond said with a rueful shake of her head. “Those girls are completely unreasonable.”

“I guess,” Chrysalis said noncommittally. She then glanced at Diamond’s pink phone, sitting forgotten on the tabletop. “Did you really need the wifi that badly?”

“Hmm?” Diamond then looked down at her phone, seemingly for the first time since things escalated to violence. “Oh, no. This wasn’t about the wifi. This was about teaching them a lesson.”

That bitterness Chrysalis had been tasting throughout the entire encounter grew stronger in her mouth. “You really hate them, don’t you?”

Diamond sighed and leaned back. “They just get under my skin. Those three have no respect for anything, least of all us.”

Diamond was quiet for a moment, and the server came to their table with a pack of ice for Chrysalis, and the four of them paused their conversation to place their orders.

“To tell you the truth…Apple Bloom and I used to be friends when we were kids,” Diamond said when the server was gone.

“Really?” Chrysalis asked. “What happened?”

With a resigned shrug, Diamond said, “Eh. Kids grow up. At least, I did. I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I’m going into politics when I graduate. That’s why I want to fill Sunset Shimmer’s shoes at CHS when she’s gone. Gotta make as many connections as I can as early as I can, you know?”

The others all nodded in agreement.

“I don’t think Apple Bloom ever forgave me for moving on, though. Probably why she and her friends are always trying to get under my skin at every turn. Because the fact is, they’ve fallen behind us. They only care about collecting their stupid scout badges.”

“You want to know what I think?” Silver Spoon said. “They’re jealous of us. We’ve figured out what our calling in life is, and they haven’t. That’s probably why they’re so obsessed with ‘crusading’ for those merit badges. Those morons probably think getting the right badge will help them figure out who they are!”

“Yeah, which is totally dumb,” Cozy Glow added.

It made sense; Chrysalis supposed. And it reaffirmed that Chrysalis had made the right choice in friends. In all her teachings of the human world, Celestia had never taught Chrysalis about what kind of friends she should be making. But she did warn her that some kids were clear slackers who despite their teachers’ best efforts were going nowhere in life. Celestia seemed to trust Chrysalis to make her own choices, but the implication was clear: be careful not to befriend anyone who was going to drag you down. Chrysalis didn’t get the sense that things were like that with Diamond Tiara and her friends. Clearly they were going places.

Even so, the whole encounter left a bad taste in her mouth, and it wasn’t just the bitterness of Diamond’s hatred.

After enjoying her first milkshake with her friends, Chrysalis decided to head home early. She simply didn’t feel up to socializing anymore that day. Thankfully, Diamond and the others were understanding enough, and promised to see her at the mall the next day. So, Chrysalis made her way to the nearest bus stop, where someone was already waiting.

Apple Bloom stood alone under the bus shelter, rubbing her arms to stave off the autumn chill. She didn’t seem to have noticed Chrysalis yet (or if she did, she was trying very hard to ignore her), and Chrysalis had half a mind to take a walk around the block and wait to catch the next bus. Something about that didn’t sit right with her, and the longer she hung back, the more she realized what she was supposed to do. So taking a deep, nervous breath, Chrysalis approached Apple Bloom.

The freckle-faced girl remained oblivious to her even as Chrysalis was standing next to her, and Chrysalis noticed she was wearing earbuds. So, Chrysalis loudly cleared her throat, and Apple Bloom turned to look at her. The sudden look of surprise and terror on her face indicated to Chrysalis that Apple Bloom had not, in fact, merely been ignoring her. The redhead took a nervous step back and removed one of her earbuds.

“W-what do you want?” she asked, doing an admirable job of keeping her voice steady.

Chrysalis took another deep breath to calm her nerves. Here goes…. “I’m sorry.”

Apple Bloom’s brow furrowed, instantly transforming the scared look on her face to one of confusion.

“What happened at the Corner…that wasn’t cool, and I’m sorry for the role I played in that,” Chrysalis continued, feeling very small despite her generous height.

Apple Bloom blinked as she tried to gather her thoughts. “That’s…okay, I guess.”

Okay, I did the right thing. Now to quietly wait for the bus. But Chrysalis quickly found the silence uncomfortable as another minute passed without any sign of public transportation. That, and she realized this was the perfect time to sate some of her curiosity.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Chrysalis asked. Apple Bloom shrugged, so Chrysalis took that as an OK to proceed. “Why does she hate you so much?”

With a bitter laugh, Apple Bloom said, “We used to be friends when we were kids. Like, really young. Did she mention that to you?”

Chrysalis nodded, and Apple Bloom asked, “I’m curious, what did she tell you about that?”

“Not much, to be honest. Just that you grew apart as you got older, but I know there’s more to it than that,” Chrysalis said. “She carries a lot of resentment towards you.”

“Yeah well, the feeling’s mutual,” Apple Bloom said with a bitter edge to her voice. In spite of that though, Chrysalis could not taste nearly as much bitter hatred in Apple Bloom as she could in Diamond Tiara. “We did start growing apart as we got older. That much she was honest about.”

Apple Bloom paused to think, pulling her flannel jacket tighter around herself. “It was mostly on her end, though. I think when we started middle school, she started being embarrassed to be seen with me. Started hanging out with girls like Silver Spoon who were more ‘her class’, y’know?

“It made me angry. I wanted to lash out at her, so…I did something stupid.”

Apple Bloom didn’t say anything else, but Chrysalis was curious. “What did you do?”

For a moment, Apple Bloom seemed to mull over whether to tell her. Whatever her decision would have been, the sound of a bus’s engine as it turned the corner and pulled to a stop in front of them cut it short. Apple Bloom wordlessly got on, paid her fare, and Chrysalis did the same. Thinking their conversation over, Chrysalis took a seat near the front.

“Mind if I ask you something now?”

Chrysalis turned to see Apple Bloom standing next to her seat, holding onto one of the bars as the bus started to move.

“Why do you hang out with her, anyway?” Apple Bloom asked. She then said something that surprised her. “You seem like a pretty decent kid. So why Diamond Tiara?”

Chrysalis licked her lips. “I know she’s a little rough around the edges, but she’s not bad.”

“Not bad?! Did you forget everything you saw back there?” Apple Bloom hissed, careful not to raise her voice with a decently sized crowd of evening commuters present. “That little stunt with the milkshakes is far from the worst thing she’s done to me and my friends over the years!”

Spotting an empty seat further down the bus, Apple Bloom started towards it. “Just wait until you get to know her better. You’ll see what I mean.”

The sun was going down when Chrysalis arrived home. Sable and Celestia were both already home, and Chrysalis called out with a “hello” before going straight to her room, where she spent the rest of the evening on the internet until dinner. Celestia’s eyes widened when Chrysalis sat down at the table, and she immediately realized something was wrong.

“Oh my God. Chrysalis, is that a bruise?!” Celestia exclaimed, immediately coming closer to get a better look at her face.

After the milkshakes with her friends and her talk with Apple Bloom on her way home, Chrysalis had forgotten all about the bruise Scootaloo had left when she hit her. She probably could have hidden it with her shapeshifting magic if she hadn’t forgotten. So stupid!

“Jesus, how did this happen?” Celestia asked as she brushed aside Chrysalis’s long bangs to get a better view.

Chrysalis couldn’t quite bring herself to look Celestia in the eyes at that moment, and stared at her feet as she desperately tried to think of how she was going to explain what happened to her.

“Chrysalis…” Celestia said in that tone. The one she only used when she suspected Chrysalis had done something wrong.

_{“Someonepunchedme.”}

“What was that?”

“I said ‘Someone punched me’,” Chrysalis said, still not quite able to look Celestia in the eye, but that didn’t stop her from trying.

Celestia sighed and said, “Okay, that’s what I thought. Thankfully it doesn’t look too swollen, but I’ll get you some ice for it anyway.”

“Thanks,” Chrysalis said meekly as Celestia went to the kitchen.

That left Chrysalis alone with Sable, which under normal circumstances was awkward enough. Now though, the big man was studying her with suspicious eyes, and it made Chrysalis want to shrink away. She couldn’t help but remember when she’d seen that same look in the eyes of his counterpart in Equestria so long ago. Even when she was under the effects of Sombra’s mind control drug, Loam never trusted her. That might have been why he’d been so rough with her when he….

“Chrysalis, you didn’t get that in a fight, did you?” Sable asked, his deep voice stern and cold. The memories that came with it made her tense up and shiver.

“No.”

“Chrysalis, don’t lie to me. How did you get that?”

Chrysalis did her best to hide behind her bangs. “There…there was this girl at the Sugarcube Corner. She tried to attack my friends, and when I tried to stop her….”

Sable just folded his arms and shook his head. “You think I can’t tell when someone’s bullshitting me, Chrysalis?”

“But—”

“I hear half-truths like that all the time at work, so be honest. Did you get in a fight?”

Finally, Chrysalis got annoyed enough that Sable’s cold stare and the memories it brought no longer scared her – they made her furious, instead. “Oh, why the fuck do you care anyway?! YOU’RE NOT MY FATHER!”

The words caused a crack to form in the armor that was Sable’s glare, so Chrysalis pressed her attack without stopping to think about it.

“I know you only tolerate me because of Celestia, so fucking stop PRETENDING TO CARE!”

Another devastating hit to Sable’s authoritative glare. Chrysalis expected it to feel satisfying, but somehow, it wasn’t.

“CRISALIDE DELLA LUCCA!” Celestia stood in the doorway, a Ziploc bag full of ice from the freezer hanging from her hand, forgotten beneath her own icy glare. “Do not raise your voice at us, young lady!”

All of the wind went out of her sails under Celestia’s gaze. In her two weeks of living with her, Chrysalis had never seen Celestia look so angry before. The one woman in Chrysalis’s more than one thousand years of living to have opened her home and heart to her, and Chrysalis had wronged her enough to make her look at her the way the other Celestia looked at her.

“I’m sorry,” Chrysalis croaked around her tightening throat.

“Finish your dinner and go to your room,” Celestia ordered. “Then Sable and I are going to have a talk about whether you’re grounded for the weekend.”

“Yes Celestia.” Chrysalis decided right then that she didn’t want to have an awkward quiet meal with two righteously pissed off legal guardians, so she took her plate of food and retreated to her room, ruminating about how badly she’d screwed things up after only her second week on Earth.

Of course, someone as broken and fucked up as I am can’t help but break and fuck up every good thing that could happen to me!

In the kitchen, Sable pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long, tired sigh.

“Well, that went well,” Celestia sighed as she sat down at the table.

“Maybe I was too hard on her,” Sable said.

“I didn’t hear the whole conversation, but you definitely came in guns blazing a bit.”

“Once a Ranger, always a Ranger,” Sable said with a dry chuckle. Then he was quiet, staring forlornly at the food on his plate.

“Hey, she didn’t mean what she said to you, okay?” Celestia said, reaching across the table to put her hand on his. “I know you wouldn’t be so hard on her if you didn’t care, and I think she knows it too.”

“Thanks, Tia, but I’m just at my wits’ end on what to do with her,” Sable said. “The truth is, she just doesn’t trust me the way she trusts you.”

“Unfortunately, I think you’re right,” Celestia said. “Tell you what: if we’re grounding her for the weekend, I’ll be the one to break it to her. Hearing it from you probably won’t endear you to her any.”

The two started eating their dinner (which had already started to get cold), silently brainstorming what they were going to do about the Chrysalis situation. Sable remembered how excited Chrysalis had been to go to the mall tomorrow, as well as his conversation with Troubleshoes at lunch earlier in the day.

“Actually, I think she should go. It'll be the first time in her life she'll actually get to experience spending a day out with friends. I'm not taking that away from her.”

Celestia tilted her head. “Well, we can’t just let her off the hook. She needs to understand that kind of behavior has consequences.”

“Don’t worry. I just got an idea.” Sable smiled, and Celestia knew then that he had everything worked out.

Chapter 3 - Illusion of Friendship

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Chrysalis thought for sure she would be grounded this weekend. She’d even texted Diamond Tiara after her fight with her guardians the previous night to say as such (Diamond had replied with three poop emojis, which pretty much nailed how Chrysalis felt). Then the morning came, and Chrysalis came out of her room for breakfast only to be surprised by what Sable asked her.

“You want a ride to the shopping center today?”

Chrysalis tilted her head. “Am I…not grounded?”

“Celestia and I had a talk about it.” Sable took a lengthy sip of coffee—too lengthy not to be deliberate—before answering, “We decided to give you your day out with your friends. But make no mistake, you are not off the hook.”

“Right, I guess that’s fair,” Chrysalis said with a nod as she went to the cupboard to get some of the very sugary cereal that she liked. “For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry for how I behaved last night. I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”

Chrysalis waited with bated breath for Sable’s response, every second of silence that passed filling her with more and more unexplained dread.

“If you’re gonna be taking a ride with me, we need to make a quick stop first,” Sable finally said, making Chrysalis wonder if he even heard her apology. “Accidentally left some papers at work yesterday.”

“That’s okay,” Chrysalis said, not really sure of what else she could say. Part of her considered turning down Sable’s offered lift. Things between them were sure to be even more uncomfortable than they already were before their fight, and with the added stop to the school Sable taught at, taking the bus wouldn’t be that much longer.

But before she knew it, Chrysalis was getting into the car with Sable, taking a moment to message Diamond that she would be making an appearance today after all. The silence of the car ride was exactly as uncomfortable as Chrysalis expected, with only the sound of talk radio as a distraction.

Finally, Chrysalis couldn’t take it anymore. “May I ask why I’m not being punished?”

“You are being punished, Chrysalis. Just not today.”

Chrysalis nodded, suspecting she understood. “Ah, I see. Psychological torture. You’re letting the anticipation of punishment serve as part of the punishment itself. It’s okay, I can take it.”

She had to stop herself from offhandedly mentioning that she had learned just how effective psychological torture could be by being on both sides of it.

Sable just sighed. “No, Chrysalis. We’re not trying to torture you.” There was a beat of silence as Sable seemed to be figuring out what to say next. “I know this whole ‘family’ thing is still new to you—hell, it’s new to me too—but Celestia and I are your guardians. Our job is to love and care for you, even if that means using a firm hand sometimes.”

They passed a sign on the highway that read SUNNYTOWN NEXT EXIT and Sable pulled over to the exit lane, stopping behind an 18-wheeler waiting on the traffic. He took the moment to look her directly in the eyes. “You understand, right?”

Chrysalis nodded, and Sable smiled. In that instance, Chrysalis felt something—tasted it, too—that made her see this human in a different light. At that moment, it was impossible for her to compare him to the Sable Loam she knew in Equestria.

A few minutes later, they were off the highway and driving down the streets of Sunnytown. Something about the air here felt different. Tasted different too. Trash littered the streets around overflowing bins. Buildings were run down, every other one seemingly outright abandoned. A half-torn sofa sat on the end of a street, and a man whose clothes could generously be called rags slept on it beneath a couple of newspapers. He was so still he might have been dead.

They passed an alleyway, and for a brief moment Chrysalis caught a glimpse of two figures mercilessly kicking something…or maybe someone. They turned a corner onto a narrower street, where more figures in baggy clothes and hoods loitered about. A group of about four of them who were standing around an idling car turned to look at Sable and Chrysalis as they passed by, one of them pointing them out to the others. Chrysalis looked over her shoulder to see them quickly getting into the car.

Chrysalis had been to many places like this in Equestria. Usually, it was when she needed the services of dangerous ponies with very specific skillsets that a mere changeling was ill-suited for, and images of a certain stallion with a bad mustache flashed through her mind. It was the kind of place one didn’t venture through without knowing how to handle yourself. In Equestria, when Chrysalis was a powerful changeling queen, no one in a place like this posed much of a threat to her. But now, she was just a girl. A girl with some shapeshifting powers and above average physical strength, true enough, but with nowhere near the power that she had in Equestria.

“Why are we going this way exactly?” Chrysalis asked.

“I told you. Need to pick up something from work,” Sable said nonchalantly.

“This is where you work?” she asked, and Sable nodded, laughing at a joke on the radio.

Chrysalis took another look back. There was a car driving behind them now, less than a block away. One that looked suspiciously similar to the one they’d passed a moment ago. Sable turned left, and a moment later the other car did the same. A few minutes later, they turned right, and the other car was still behind them.

“I think we’re being followed,” Chrysalis said.

“Probably.”

How could he be so blase about this? “Shouldn’t we do something?”

“No need. This happens all the time,” Sable said. “Once they see us pull into the Blanks they’ll leave us alone. People around here know that Blanks faculty are all ex-military, and typically aren’t stupid enough to mess around.”

Chrysalis nodded and simply tried to keep her attention straight ahead. That was a mistake, as the first thing she saw was a man crossing the street with no pants on, his junk in the breeze.

“Wow.”

“Heh, yeah. Another Saturday in Sunnytown,” Sable muttered as they drove past.

Finally, they reached the school and turned into the faculty parking lot. Chrysalis watched as the car that had been driving along behind them for the past several minutes suddenly accelerated and drove past, disappearing around a corner.

Switching the car off and removing his seatbelt, Sable said, “You should stick close. Like I said, typically people don’t mess with faculty here…but it is Saturday.”

Chrysalis hastily nodded, fumbling to get her own seatbelt off as Sable stepped out of the car and started walking up to the building.

Equestria County Alternative High adorned the façade in big plain letters. Apart from that, the building was spotless: a huge slate grey brick with no discernible features save for a few cracked windows. It looked more like a prison than a school (Chrysalis could easily imagine towers and a barbed-wire fence around it), and Chrysalis started to realize why Sable always called it “the Blanks.”

It was only when they went around to the faculty entrance that the first hint of color appeared on the building. Scrawled all along the back wall were a number of crude messages etched in spray paint. Chrysalis spotted a number of expletives as well as references to individuals she suspected were teachers at this school. Some of it she didn’t quite understand—one message asserted that somebody named Red Horse had a taste for carpets, which seemed ridiculous to Chrysalis. As they reached the door, Chrysalis spotted one name that she recognized.

“’Sodomy Sable takes phat…’?” Chrysalis read out loud.

Sable just laughed. “I’m just glad to know someone was paying attention to my literature lectures.”

Saying nothing more, Sable unlocked the door and went inside, and Chrysalis followed him closely. The hallways of the Blanks were very different from what she was used to at Canterlot High. At CHS, Chrysalis couldn’t walk five feet without seeing fliers for the school’s various clubs and sports teams, or a display case featuring trophies and awards the school had won over the years. The halls of the Blanks were bare, the only thing adorning the wall being long dried stains of…something.

They reached Sable’s office, and Sable wasted no time in pulling papers out of his desk and putting them in his bag. Chrysalis just stood to the side of the door, listening to the loud buzz of fluorescent lights.

“So Chrys, have you thought about trying out for any of the sports teams at CHS?” Sable asked casually.

“I started too late to try out for any of the teams, but that’s okay. I sometimes like staying after school to watch the soccer team practice.” Chrysalis thought she’d maybe try out for the soccer team next semester but wasn’t sure she’d like it enough to stick with it. That didn’t matter so much to her, though. What mattered was that she had the chance to try at all.

“What about clubs?” Sable asked. “Any of them catch your eye yet?”

Chrysalis had to think about that one. “My friend Diamond is the president of the junior debate club. I could join that, but…I dunno. I’m kinda more interested in the movie club.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

Chrysalis looked up at the buzzing fluorescent light above his head, oddly mesmerized by it. “Di says it’s full of losers.”

Sable hmmed and put the last of his papers in his bag. “Well, it’s good you have so many options at CHS. Students here don’t have that luxury.”

“You don’t have any clubs here at all?” Chrysalis asked, and Sable shook his head. “What about sports?”

“We tried to get our own soccer team a couple years back, but the school board wouldn’t approve it. Didn’t want to waste the resources on what they saw as a school full of future criminals.” Sable shook his head, and Chrysalis could taste his frustration. “It’s like it never occurred to them that many of these kids might not even be future criminals if they had something like a sports team to give them purpose.”

“No wonder it looks like a prison…” Chrysalis muttered. “Why would anyone want to go here?”

“Most students don’t,” Sable said. “Most of them are here because they were expelled from another school.”

“Like CHS?” Chrysalis asked.

“A fair number of my students used to attend CHS, yeah.”

Chrysalis let that sink in as Sable zipped up his bag. Being here and seeing what it was like certainly added new weight to all of Neighsay’s talk about sending her to the Blanks or somewhere similar.

“You know what the really sad thing is?” Sable asked as he stood up. “Not all of my students really deserve to be here. A lot of them are smart. Motivated. But…they fell in with the wrong crowd. Because the other really sad thing is, not everyone who does deserve to be here ends up here.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I’m trying to say is…the worst kind of kids aren’t the ones who graffiti ‘Sodomy Sable takes phat cocks’ on the wall.” Sable then gave her a knowing look, and Chrysalis had the feeling he could see right through her in that moment. “The worst kind of kids are the ones who can convince others to do it for them.”

After Sable dropped her off at the east entrance to the Olde Towne Shopping Center, Chrysalis sent Diamond Tiara a message letting her know she was here and then entered. She was not prepared for the sight that awaited her. Olde Towne certainly looked like its name suggested, with a cobblestone pedestrian street lined with old-fashioned lamp posts leading down rows of beautiful brick buildings. It was only when Chrysalis peered into the large windows of the stores that she saw how sleek and modern they were inside. Row after row of clothing and apparel stores, antique shops and restaurants stretched on, each one as smooth and elegant as the last. Chrysalis was so lost in the sheer beauty of it all she didn’t hear her friends approach.

“’Sup loser,” Diamond Tiara greeted.

Chrysalis was too enamoured to return the customary greeting. “This place is awesome!” she exclaimed.

“You didn’t have anything like Olde Towne up in Klamath Falls?”

“No,” Chrysalis said. Not that she’d know.

Something about the clearly European inspired design made Chrysalis nostalgic for the first home she’d ever known, and without thinking, she said, “I wonder if this is what Italy looks like now….”

“You’d know better than us,” Silver Spoon said with a careless shrug. “It can’t have changed that much since you lived there.”

“Right,” Chrysalis said, remembering that her homeland was probably as strange and different as California was to her now.

“Can we go shopping now?” Cozy Glow asked. “I’m bored already!”

Chrysalis was eager to check out some of these shops as well, so together the four girls set out, spending the next couple of hours browsing clothing stores. Chrysalis couldn’t help but notice that Diamond and the others had a fair bit of spending money to throw around. The money from Chrysalis’s own allowance wasn’t inconsiderable, but she didn’t want to spend it all on a single pair of shoes (regardless of how nice they may have been). Thus, she spent most of that morning merely window-shopping, in spite of her friends’ best efforts to get her to buy something.

“What about this, Chrys?” Diamond asked for the dozenth time, holding up a white skirt with gold accents. “You like it?”

“Ooh that’s cute!” Cozy exclaimed.

“I guess…” Chrysalis muttered. “Cute” wasn’t really her style, but she spotted something deeper in the store that was.

“Whoa, check this out!” Chrysalis said, holding up a black shirt with the design of a deer skull complete with big intricate antlers. “Now this I like!”

“That’s the boys’ section, Chrys,” Silver sighed.

“Is that a problem?”

“You’re a girl.”

Chrysalis still didn’t see the problem. Skulls were cool! Why shouldn’t girls get to wear them?

“Look Chrys, I think it’s cool that you don’t give a fuck about what anybody thinks,” Diamond Tiara said, gently taking the hanger with the deer skull shirt on it from her. “But we can’t afford that luxury. We’re too important. And now that you’re with us, so are you.”

Diamond put the deer skull shirt back on the rack where Chrysalis found it and started to lead her away. “The whole school has their eye on us, and your whole… ‘Hobo Hot Topic’ aesthetic just doesn’t mesh with ours. It makes you stand out too much.”

Chrysalis frowned. “What’s wrong with standing out?”

“Nothing! It’s just….” Diamond let out a patient sigh. “Look, you want to keep hanging out with us, right?” Chrysalis nodded, and Diamond Tiara grabbed the white skirt from before as well as a pink top. “Then just try it on. Who knows? You might even like it once you see yourself wearing it!”

Chrysalis still wasn’t crazy about the outfit but took it from Diamond regardless and headed for the changing rooms. Diamond was trying her hardest to help Chrysalis fit in, the least she could do was try it on. Once inside the changing booth, Chrysalis looked at the outfit hanging on the door for a second before turning to face the mirror in the booth.

She concentrated, and instantly the green flame-like appearance of her magic washed over her. Chrysalis stood, her sallow features and teal-tipped blond hair unchanged, but in place of the dark sweater, denim skirt and black leggings she now wore the soft white and gold skirt and pink blouse that Diamond Tiara had picked out. She didn’t look bad in it necessarily. In fact, Chrysalis thought she looked rather fetching.

Even so, something about it just didn’t feel right. Chrysalis was used to changing her appearance drastically and regularly. It was kind of what she did. Back in Equestria, there were times when she would have to live under a different appearance and identity for weeks, months, or occasionally years at a time. It was for that reason that her sense of identity was fairly fluid. But looking at the gorgeous, stylish outfit she was wearing now, she just didn’t feel like herself. The person looking back at her was a stranger.

So with another flash of green flame-like magic, the pretty pink and white outfit disappeared and her darker, more familiar clothes returned. Leaving the real pink and white outfit hanging in the booth, Chrysalis exited, making her way back toward her friends. On her way over to them, she realized that most humans couldn’t change in the blink of an eye like she could. Diamond and the others definitely wouldn’t believe her when she told them she tried it on. So, seeing that the three of them were still looking at clothes on the far side of the store—seeming not to have noticed her yet—Chrysalis decided to make a stop to the ladies’ room: nature happened to be calling anyway.

When Chrysalis finished her business, she lingered in the stall for a little bit, idly checking her phone. It was around that time she heard the restroom door open, and a pair of footsteps echoed through the room. Accompanying them were a pair of familiar voices engaged in lively conversation.

“Like, it’s not just me right? That girl’s kind of a freak!” It was Silver Spoon’s voice, and she sounded annoyed with someone.

“She’s weird, I know, but that’s fine. We can work with that,” Diamond Tiara said. “Remember how Cozy used to be when we first met?”

Chrysalis thought she should speak up, let her friends know she was in here too, perhaps even ask what they were talking about. But some instinct deep inside her told her to just remain quiet and listen. Perhaps it was the changeling part of her still trained in espionage.

“I just don’t know how much longer I can keep up the ‘friendly’ act, y’know?” Silver Spoon said, as Chrysalis heard what was probably Diamond enter a stall further down.

“Just be patient,” Diamond Tiara reassured.

“Do we really need her this much? I mean, Cozy Glow I get. Her mom’s on the district school board. But why Chrysalis? Is it because her mom’s superintendent?”

Chrysalis was still already, but now she was practically frozen.

“It’s because she’s our in with Sunset Shimmer,” Diamond said. “If we’re going to take her place when she graduates, she needs to acknowledge us or else the school won’t see it as legitimate. We already burned the bridge we had with Apple Bloom and her friends—honestly, if I thought it was even possible Sunset was gonna reconcile with their sisters a year ago I wouldn’t have targeted them so much.

“But if Chrysalis vouches for us, at the very least Sunset can’t dismiss us outright!” There was a pause, and Diamond added, “Besides, you saw her at the Corner the other day. The girl’s a beast! Having her around as muscle will definitely come in handy!”

“I hope you’re right,” Silver Spoon said, “because I….”

The sound of a toilet flushing drowned out the rest of whatever she said next, but whatever it was made Diamond Tiara laugh—a sound Chrysalis had heard many times, but somehow sounded a touch crueler now. The pair of them started talking about where they wanted to go next—Silver Spoon suggested lunch, saying she was getting hungry—over the sound of the running sink faucets.

Chrysalis stood up, quickly hiking up her skirt. She was going to emerge from her stall like a demon from hell and demand an explanation! But instead, she just stood there, awkwardly peering through the crack in the door until Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon left. Only then did Chrysalis emerge and wash her hands.

It was a slow process; all the speed had apparently been diverted to Chrysalis’s mind as it raced at mach speed. Was their whole friendship a lie? Were they really just using her? Chrysalis always got the feeling that Silver Spoon felt awkward around her, but Diamond Tiara always seemed so genuine!

What else did you expect when you bought into the big lie of ‘friendship’ anyway? The little voice in her head piped up as it so often did in moments like this one.

Chrysalis looked up at the mirror in front of her, and for a moment could swear her own reflection was already glaring at her. Its gaze seemed to pierce right through her.

So what if they’re only using you? Use them back! Little Voice said. That’s all a ‘friendship’ really is anyway: Just people using each other for mutual gain! There was a time you understood this.

Chrysalis splashed her face with some of the sink’s water in a desperate bid to clear her thoughts (again thinking her reflection’s gaze seemed to linger on her for an extra moment). Was that right? Was she foolish for ever thinking that friendship was something she could have?

Chrysalis walked out of the women’s restroom in a daze, and before she knew it she had met up with her frie—with Diamond Tiara and the others.

“You okay, Chrys? You look kinda pale,” Diamond Tiara asked with kind eyes and a concerned tone. Oh, she is good!

Chrysalis just gave her a big, toothy smile, noting the way Silver Spoon recoiled. “Never better!”

Lunch was a terribly awkward affair. While Diamond Tiara and the others carried on with conversation throughout the meal, Chrysalis remained dead silent. Even when Diamond made the occasional effort to include her in the conversation (like a matron throwing scraps to the dog under the table) Chrysalis gave her only a shrug and a non-committal grunt. After a few times, Chrysalis spotted Diamond exchange a look with Silver, who gave a barely perceptible shrug. Chrysalis grinned ever so slightly. She’d let them sweat like this for a little while before letting them continue to think she still believed them to be her friends.

Then what would she do? It was one of the many things racing through her head as she ate. There must be some way she could benefit from keeping up the charade of friendship. Diamond wanted to use her to get into Sunset’s good graces. Perhaps she could pretend to be her friend until Diamond inevitably asked her to put in a good word with Sunset: an opportunity she could use to throw Diamond and the others under the bus, securing her own position as Sunset’s successor. Of course, there was no reason to wait for Diamond to ask before selling her out, Chrysalis could talk to Sunset next week if she wanted to. So she kept thinking.

Maybe she could try to get close enough to Diamond to learn some of her darkest secrets. She could even recruit Apple Bloom towards that end: she’d known Diamond for long enough to have something good on her. Once she had what she needed, Chrysalis would…do what, exactly? Destroy her reputation at CHS, thereby removing her as a potential obstacle to power? Or perhaps she’d use it as blackmail and make Diamond dance for a while before dropping it on her anyway.

All of this sounded very appealing, but Chrysalis found herself thinking about her drive with Sable this morning and couldn’t help but imagine how disappointed he and Celestia would be. She had promised Celestia and Sunset that she wasn’t that person anymore. Another thought suddenly occurred to Chrysalis that made her incredibly uneasy: the simple truth that she didn’t want to humiliate and destroy Diamond Tiara and her friends. Yet here she was, trying to think of every way imaginable she could use her friendship with Diamond to her advantage because the truth was….

The truth was Chrysalis didn’t want to go back to being alone. Chrysalis started to laugh. There it was: she’d rather cling to the illusion of friendship than go through the rest of her school years without it.

“What’s so funny?” Silver Spoon asked.

“Just my life,” Chrysalis said between giggles, and again the other three girls looked at each other with growing concern.

Several minutes later, the four of them finished their meals and set out for the Olde Towne Theater. The other three were doing their level best to forget about Chrysalis’s earlier bout of insanity, talking about the movie they planned on seeing. Cozy, however, kept checking her phone and looking around the theater, her foot tapping impatiently. By the time they got their tickets and were lined up to get snacks, things actually had managed to return to some semblance of normalcy. That is, before Cozy Glow spotted something across the way and her normally sickeningly sweet face contorting into almost comical rage.

“That two-timing slut!”

Chrysalis followed where she was looking and spotted a pair of familiar figures. Sweetie Belle and the brown-haired boy with the hat—Button, if Chrysalis remembered correctly—were chatting happily with each other as they walked into a theater showing a superhero flick that honestly looked far more appealing to Chrysalis than the teen romantic comedy Diamond and the others wanted to see. Chrysalis noted just how close together the two were, and what was more, she could taste their infatuation all the way from where she was standing.

“Eesh, you hate to see it,” Silver Spoon said. Diamond Tiara said nothing, but managed to snap a quick picture of the two with her phone before they disappeared into the theater.

“If that bitch thinks she can steal my boyfriend, I’m gonna smash her fucking face in!” Cozy’s rage was hot enough to burn Chrysalis’s tongue, however she couldn’t deny that such extreme anger from someone so miniscule was rather comical.

“Relax, Cozy. I’ll take care of it,” Diamond said. Chrysalis could hear the tap tap tap of her texting someone.

“Fuck that, I wanna make her bleed!”

“I told you before, we can’t afford to be so direct. Not before the old guard graduates anyway,” Diamond said, and Chrysalis could hear her hit ‘send’ on that text. “But us being the new guard, we can’t let a challenge like that go unanswered, so relax. She’ll be put in her place before the day’s over.”

With a few deep breaths, Cozy returned to her usual saccharine demeanor.

“Thanks, Di,” she said, pulling Diamond into a big affectionate hug. “You’re such a good friend!”

Chrysalis couldn’t help but feel a twang of sympathy for Cozy Glow at that moment. From what she overheard, Diamond was using her just like she was using Chrysalis. Perhaps Chrysalis could tell Cozy what she heard. But not right now. For now, Chrysalis would let her enjoy the illusion of friendship Diamond was giving her for a little while longer.

A couple of hours later, when Chrysalis and the others left the movie theater, (Chrysalis found the movie itself fairly underwhelming. How do you set a movie in high school without any musical numbers?) Diamond Tiara met up with the person she had been texting before it started. A large, beefy boy with orange hair and punk-like attire, including a dog collar, Diamond had introduced him to Chrysalis as “Rover”. According to Diamond, he was a member of a group of senior year troublemakers.

“What is he, your boyfriend or something?” Chrysalis had asked as they were on their way to meet up with him.

“No, but he’s head over heels in love with me, which makes him useful,” Diamond had answered.

So, just another one of your pawns then, Chrysalis thought as she and the others met up with Diamond’s proverbial dog. Despite what Diamond told her, Chrysalis didn’t sense any real love from Rover in Diamond’s presence. But it was hard to miss his constant glances up and down her body. There was clearly only one thing Rover wanted from her, and Chrysalis suspected that if Diamond ever gave it to him, she would no longer have her loyal dog. It was likely Diamond was aware of this too, and thus would never do any more than string him along.

“Hey hot stuff,” Rover said, pulling out a single rose and offering it to Diamond. Chrysalis spotted a flower shop barely a few feet away. “Got you something.”

“Well aren’t you sweet,” Diamond deadpanned, taking the flower and handing it off to Silver without so much as glancing at it. “Now, did you follow those two morons like I asked?”

“After they left the theater, they stopped by the game store,” Rover reported. “Then I saw them go out behind the west lot. You can probably guess what they’re doing back there.”

To punctuate his point, Rover made a circle with his thumb and pointer finger and inserted his other finger in and out.

“Classy. Don’t you think that’s a little insensitive to poor Cozy?” Diamond asked sternly. Rover very quickly stopped.

Diamond then proceeded to give him his orders like a general to his troops: Find them and make them both pay for breaking Cozy’s heart.

“Break Sweetie’s nose. That pretty face is what got her into this mess in the first place,” Diamond said. “If you think about it, we’re doing her a favor by keeping her out of future trouble.”

“Oh, and while you’re at it, break some of Button’s fingers,” Cozy Glow added. “I might find it in my heart to forgive him for this betrayal, but only if he devotes himself to making it up to me. Not being able to play his dumb video games should make that easier for him!”

“And take Chrys with you,” Diamond said. “Those losers probably won’t give you any trouble, but it’ll be good to have the backup. Just in case.” She then turned to Chrysalis. “You up for putting the hurt on some back-stabbing cheaters?”

Chrysalis nodded. Beating up someone who deserved it might be just the thing she needed to take her mind off the day.

So, she soon found herself walking across the quiet parking lot on the west side of Olde Towne. Apparently, they were repaving much of this particular lot, so most of it was closed off from the shopping center’s customers. It was the ideal place to start something away from prying eyes, whether that be committing adultery or punishing it.

As they walked, Rover went on and on about how much he hated “disloyal punks”. Chrysalis, on the other hand, remained quiet. Her mind was still racing. Was what she was about to do really right? She’d done far worse to traitors to her hive, after all. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon may have turned out to be as two-faced as…well, a changeling, but Cozy didn’t seem to know anything about it. On the contrary, she and Chrysalis appeared to be in the same boat. The least Chrysalis could do was look out for her interests, even if Diamond happened to benefit from it.

On the other hand, the thought of what she was about to do filled Chrysalis with an unpleasant feeling in her stomach. For some reason, her mind kept taking her back to the graffiti she’d seen on the wall outside the Blanks’ staff entrance. Sodomy Sable takes phat cocks.

“Yo there they are.” Rover’s voice brought Chrysalis out of her own head.

Just ahead of them, Chrysalis could see their targets. To her mild surprise, Button and Sweetie were not wrestling tongues up against the wall like Rover had suggested. Instead, they were both holding out their phones towards a corner of the wall, moving their fingers up across their screens with purpose. Both of them remained unaware of Chrysalis and Rover’s presence.

“Yes!” Button exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air.

“You got it?” Sweetie asked him.

“Yeah. Dratini, you’re mine!”

“Nice!”

It took only a moment for Chrysalis to realize they were playing that “pocket monsters” game that was apparently really popular at school. Chrysalis had even downloaded the app herself, though she hadn’t gotten around to actually trying it yet. The game itself couldn’t be further from her mind at the moment, however. Something about the scene didn’t add up.

“Are you sure they’re even together?” Chrysalis asked her partner. “They seem like they’re just hanging out as friends—”

Chrysalis barely finished her sentence before noticing that Diamond’s attack dog was already off his leash. Sweetie’s soft, high-pitched voice let out a shriek of horror as Button was suddenly shoved against the wall. Rover then laid into him with a punch to the gut. Sighing, Chrysalis made towards them as Sweetie started screeching at the much bigger boy, fumbling for something in her bag as she did so.

Sweetie brought a pink canister of pepper spray to bear (Chrysalis knew what it was because Celestia had given her one just like it), but she never got the chance to use it. Chrysalis pinned her against the wall with one hand, snatching the bottle of mace and tossing it away with her other hand.

“Nice one, Chrys,” Rover said after tossing Button to the ground. “You take care of her, I’ll take care of him.”

Sweetie looked between Chrysalis and Rover with wide, terrified eyes glistening with tears. Chrysalis saw the hurt recognition there, and felt something tiny inside of her break. “W-why are you doing this?” she asked as Button said something similar to his own attacker.

“Shut up! You know what you fuckin’ did, you disloyal punk!” Rover shouted as he held Button face down into the pavement.

“What the hell are you talking about?!” Button shouted, clearly in pain.

“Cozy Glow. That name ring a bell?” Rover said, shoving Button’s face into the pavement harder.

“She put you up to this? Why?!”

Rover lifted his face off the pavement just to slam it down again. “Because real men don’t cheat on their girlfriends!”

“SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND! SHE HAS NEVER BEEN MY GIRLFRIEND! THAT GIRL IS INSANE!”

“SHUT UP!” Rover grabbed Button’s arm as the much scrawnier boy tried to elbow him off, and twisted it behind his back, eliciting a cry of agony from the boy. Rover then looked up over his shoulder. “Chrys, what are you waiting for? Teach that slut a lesson!”

Looking back at the terrified girl she had pinned to the wall, Chrysalis recalled what Diamond had suggested. Break her nose. So Chrysalis raised her fist, but to her surprise, Sweetie didn’t recoil or whimper. Although the girl was clearly scared out of her mind, she held Chrysalis’s gaze.

“Y-you don’t have to do this,” Sweetie said. “P-please….”

Chrysalis had seen that same terror on so many other faces over so many centuries. When enough creatures looked upon you with such fear, one eventually grows numb to seeing it. But something about Sweetie’s terrified face in that moment gave Chrysalis pause. She realized she was thinking about the moment that she had first met Sweetie Belle on her first day of school.

Even under the guise of a normal teenage girl, Chrysalis was intimidating. Most of the other students at Canterlot High first saw her and reacted either with fear or dismissal. But Sweetie Belle had been warm and friendly to her without knowing a thing about her. That kind of warmth from a complete stranger was new. And now here Chrysalis was, reducing that warmth to the same cold fear she’d always known.

With a sigh, Chrysalis’s fist unclenched and dropped it to her side, and she let go of Sweetie Belle. For a brief moment, the two of them stood, each one appraising the other, before another cry of pain from Button sprung Chrysalis into action. With purpose, Chrysalis approached Rover and Button where they struggled on the ground and delivered a swift, brutal kick to Rover’s stomach, sending the big meaty boy flying into the wall.

While Rover coughed and sputtered, Chrysalis knelt beside Button. Sweetie was by his side not even a second later. “You alright?” Chrysalis asked him.

“Everything hurts.” Button coughed.

Chrysalis looked at Sweetie. “You should get him medical attention.”

“What the fuck, Chrys?!” Rover was pulling himself to his feet, using the wall for support. “Whose side are you on?!”

Chrysalis quickly tried to pull Button to his feet and pass him over to Sweetie. “I’m not going to beat up these poor kids just because Diamond Tiara told me to,” Chrysalis told Rover. “If you’re smart you’ll do the same. She’s using you. Using both of us.”

“Bullshit!”

“Believe what you want, I’m still not letting you lay another finger on them!” Chrysalis said, readying herself. “Last chance. Just walk away.”

Rover cracked his knuckles. “You’re just another disloyal punk, and I’m gonna make you eat your words, BITCH!”

Seeing that words weren’t going to work with this guy, Chrysalis turned to Sweetie and Button. “You two get out of here,” Chrysalis said. “I’ll deal with him.”

Sweetie looked unsure, but Chrysalis didn’t have time to press the issue before Rover was upon her, swinging with wild fists. The boy was clearly untrained, likely relying solely on his size and physical strength in comparison to his weaker peers to get to this point in life. Chrysalis had faced far more dangerous foes.

Chrysalis dodged and stepped around Rover’s flurry of punches, keeping up a smug grin in the hopes of further infuriating him. Anger makes you stupid, something that Chrysalis had to learn herself the hard way on more than one occasion.

“What’s wrong?” Chrysalis taunted as she ducked a wild swing from the boy. “Can’t keep up?”

Rover let out an almost canine growl. “STAY STILL SO I CAN SMASH YOU!!!”

“Oh yeah, real motivated.”

Her ploy worked, and Rover attacked with another wild, unfocused swing. He was beginning to tire, though, and the attack was slow (and Chrysalis’s initial kick was already slowing him down), giving Chrysalis an ample opening to strike the boy’s throat with a quick precise jab.

Rover stumbled back, coughing and gurgling. He tried to shout another taunt but all that came out was a dry wheeze.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Chrysalis said, theatrically raising a hand to her ear. “You’ll have to speak up!”

As predicted, Rover came at her with another furious assault. Somewhat less predicted was the manner in which he attacked. Rather than attempt to hit her with more wild, furious punches, Rover charged straight into her like an angry bull, in what was likely a close approximation of a football tackle. Chrysalis hadn’t been ready for it and felt his entire weight slam into her as both of them fell to the ground.

Oh no…. Fully straddling her, Rover resumed his patented technique of “swing his fists wildly until he hits something.” But now, Chrysalis wasn’t in any position to maneuver, and raised her own hands in a desperate bid to redirect his attacks. Seeing no easy opening and losing ground quickly, Chrysalis instead opted for her own patented technique when dealing with a male opponent: “knee to the groin.”

Rover let out an almost cartoonish “urk” and Chrysalis shoved him off of her. The two combatants pulled themselves to their feet, and Chrysalis decided it was time to stop messing around and end this. Rover lunged at her with one more wild punch, and rather than dodge it, Chrysalis caught his fist in her palm. Slowly, painfully, Chrysalis rotated the big boy’s arm, whose eyes bugged out as his attempts to rip free of her grasp were in vain. Chrysalis turned his arm further and further back until it was a struggle to keep turning it, then turned it some more. That cold fear Chrysalis was so used to tasting in her enemies began to radiate from Rover, and Chrysalis’s big toothy smile grew ever wider as she slowly—theatrically—drew back her other hand into a fist.

Rover immediately hit the ground from the punch Chrysalis delivered. She then stood over him, folding her arms.

“If you’re planning to get back up,” Chrysalis said. “I suggest you try going the opposite way.”

Slowly—much slower than the other two times—Rover pulled himself to his feet. His eye was black and swollen, there was blood coming out of his nose, and he was cradling the arm Chrysalis had twisted around. The two of them stood and faced each other for a moment each one sizing up the other. Chrysalis made a show of looking up and down his injuries and lifted an eyebrow. Then with a final snarl, Diamond’s dog turned and ran, his proverbial tail between his legs.

“That. Was. So COOL!” a familiar high-pitched voice cracked.

Chrysalis turned around and saw Sweetie and Button leaning on each other. Chrysalis found herself irrationally angry.

“What part of ‘get out of here’ did you two not understand?!” she exclaimed.

Apparently snapping herself out of a daze, Sweetie Belle said, “Sorry. Guess we were just worried about you.”

“For no reason, apparently,” Button added, his eyes absolutely lighting up despite the rest of him looking like five miles of bad road. “That was, like, some Mortal Kombat shit! Where’d you learn to do that?”

Chrysalis simply said, “I’m self-taught.” Sparing another glance at Button, she added, “I wasn’t joking about getting you some medical attention. He messed you up!”

“Got that right,” Button chuckled, then said, “But I’d probably be a lot worse off if it wasn’t for you. Thanks!”

The boy’s earnest, genuine smile filled Chrysalis with that same warmth she’d felt from Sweetie Belle and her friends on her first day of school here. Chrysalis suddenly felt her phone vibrate, and her good feelings vanished. She had a new text from Diamond Tiara.

> WHAT THE FUCK???

“Let me guess. Your friends?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“No,” Chrysalis said. “Not anymore.”

Still, Chrysalis texted Diamond back saying she’d explain in person. It was well past time the two of them had words. The thought made Chrysalis bittersweet. This was the end of her first friendship in her new life, false though it may have been.

With another warm smile, Sweetie said, “I knew I was right.”

Chrysalis looked at her, puzzled. “About?”

“You,” Sweetie Belle said. “You don’t fit in.”

“Trust me, I know,” Chrysalis sighed. Ironic, that someone as versatile as a changeling couldn’t truly belong anywhere.

“Hey, it’s not such a bad thing,” Sweetie Belle said, and what she said next carried Chrysalis back into Olde Towne where Diamond and the others were waiting. “My friends and I don’t fit in either. But we have each other.”

The crowd was dispersing and the sun was getting lower in the sky when Chrysalis met back up with Diamond Tiara and the others by the fountain in the center of Olde Towne. It was fitting. The sun wasn’t setting on just the day, after all.

Diamond stood up, flanked by Silver Spoon and Cozy Glow. All of her carefully constructed faux friendliness was gone, and all that was left was anger. “You mind telling me why the fuck you beat Rover within an inch of his life, Chrysalis?!”

Chrysalis chuckled, adding a slight sinister edge to it; something she’d become adept at over the last millennium. “It wasn’t as bad as all that,” she said, giving Diamond a big smile. “You make me sound like some kind of monster!”

“Did you at least kick that bitch Sweetie Belle’s ass?” Cozy asked.

“The thing about that is, I’m not sure she’s even dating Button,” Chrysalis said. “But then again, neither are you, right?”

Chrysalis thought she saw a vein pop on Cozy’s neck for a brief moment. “He just…doesn’t know he likes me yet!”

“Whatever,” Chrysalis said, returning her attention to the quietly fuming Diamond Tiara. “I didn’t come here to talk about Cozy’s delusions.”

“Damn right!” Diamond exclaimed. “You’re here to account for yourself!”

At that, Chrysalis just laughed, allowing herself to ham it up a little like she used to do when she was a queen. “You might be even more delusional than Cozy!”

While the girl in question grinded her teeth, Diamond glared at Chrysalis. “What the fuck is your problem today?”

Chrysalis shoved a finger in Diamond’s face, causing Silver Spoon to visibly flinch beside her. “You are my problem, Diamond! You’re a rotten bitch and I no longer want to have anything to do with you!”

Diamond just sighed and shook her head. “That hurts, Chrysalis. I let you into our group with open arms. Treated you like a friend when no one else would. And you repay my kindness by talking to me like this?”

“Where the hell is this coming from, Chrys?” Silver asked with far less convincing faux kindness.

“Oh, you can cut the ‘friendly’ act already, Silver. I know how exhausting it is for you,” Chrysalis said dismissively.

“What are you—?” Silver cut herself short when she realized.

“You were in the bathroom earlier today, weren’t you?” Diamond asked, all the anger gone from her voice.

Chrysalis grinned. “I heard everything.”

She expected Diamond to get angry again. To start denying what Chrysalis had heard with her own two ears. Instead, Diamond just sighed and actually looked…remorseful?

“I was afraid this might happen,” Diamond said, looking at Chrysalis directly in the eyes. “I’m so sorry, Chrysalis.”

Those words brought Chrysalis’s entire planned speech to a screeching halt. “What?”

“Tell me, what exactly did you hear in the bathroom?”

“I seem to recall something about you only befriending me to get an in with Sunset Shimmer.”

“Right.” Diamond let out another long sigh. “You’re not wrong. When I initially invited you to our table, it was because I saw you—brand new to our school—talking to Sunset. And yes, when I found out you knew her, I had hoped you would introduce us. Maybe even vouch for me as someone with leadership qualities. But I should have been up front with you about that, and I am truly, deeply sorry if you ever thought that meant our friendship was fake.”

Diamond touched Chrysalis’s arm, not once breaking eye contact. “Just because I had something to gain from a friendship with you doesn’t mean I don’t want to genuinely be your friend.” She then glanced over at Silver. “Sure, some of us need a little time to warm up to you, but I think you’re cool. I love hanging out with you!”

Just like that, Chrysalis was no longer sure of what she was going to do next.

“What do you say we start over again?” Diamond suggested. “We can put the whole mess with Rover and Sweetie Belle behind us. Clean the slate. From now on, no more secrets. Nothing but total honesty…between all of us.”

Extending her hand, Diamond gave Chrysalis a winning smile. “What do you say? Friends?”

It was a tempting offer, and Chrysalis couldn’t taste any deception in Diamond’s words. It seemed like she was actually being genuine. And wouldn’t it be nice if Chrysalis got to keep her friends after everything that happened today?

Sodomy Sable takes phat cocks. There was that damn graffiti again, occupying her mind’s eye like an unwanted roommate. With it came memories of her talk with Sable in his office at the Blanks, and Chrysalis’s resolve returned. Chrysalis believed that Diamond was being straight with her…but now she was wondering if she only wanted to believe it.

“Tell me, Diamond,” Chrysalis said. “What happens the next time Sweetie Belle, or Apple Bloom or someone else does something to ruin your precious image?” she asked. “You gonna point me in their direction and say sic ‘em?”

“C’mon, we’re not like that, Chrys,” Diamond said.

Chrysalis wasn’t letting her talk her way out of this one. “So what then? Just gonna let bygones be bygones?”

There was a slight pause before Diamond answered. “I’d only ask you to do what anyone would do for a friend in their time of need.”

Chrysalis shook her head. “See, that doesn’t sound like real friendship to me. That sounds like a tyrant commanding their lackeys.”

“How do you even know what real friendship sounds like?” Diamond asked. “You told me yourself we’re the first friends you’ve really had.”

She has me there, Chrysalis thought.

“Ugh, why are you making this difficult?” Diamond groaned. “You’re arguing semantics over a situation that probably isn’t even going to happen!”

“But it will happen. Won’t it, Diamond?”

Diamond’s brow furrowed, some of the anger returning to the carefully crafted face of a friend. “You don’t know that.”

“But I do,” Chrysalis argued, feeling her resolve grow stronger still. “I may not be very experienced with friendship, but I have plenty with manipulative, narcissistic tyrants, and you are just like them!” Diamond’s façade slipped further and further as Chrysalis kept going. “It’s a good thing you’re just a kid without any real power, or you would be genuinely dangerous. Even so, I don’t want to be a part of your petty tyranny.”

With a “pfft,” Silver Spoon said, “Do you hear yourself? You’re talking like a goddamn crazy person. God you’re weird!”

Chrysalis ignored her and jabbed a finger at Diamond. “This is it. We’re done. I don’t want you or your lackeys to bother me ever again, and you know what? I don’t want you bothering Apple Bloom and her friends, either!”

With her piece said, Chrysalis turned to put her toxic former friend behind her, pausing only briefly to address Cozy Glow. She might have been a bit delusional when it came to matters of the heart, but Chrysalis was sure that everything else bad about her came from Diamond.

“They’re using you just like me. If you ever feel like getting out from under Diamond’s thumb, come talk to me.”

Cozy didn’t answer. As a matter of fact, Chrysalis noticed she had been extremely quiet throughout most of the confrontation. It was likely she was still processing everything she was hearing, as Chrysalis once again couldn’t taste any emotions from her. So, Chrysalis left without another word. At least, that had been the plan.

“WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO?!” Diamond Tiara shouted after her. “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU JUST MADE ENEMIES WITH, BITCH! BUT YOU WILL!”

Chrysalis wasn’t about to take that lying down, so she stopped and turned around.

“That’s right! Why don’t you just ask Apple Bloom and the rest of those losers about the living hell I can turn your life into?” Diamond grinned. “Because guess what? It’s about to get a whole lot worse for them now, and they’ll have you to thank for it!”

Chrysalis had been hoping to at least part on peaceful terms. Now, not only would it seem she had just made a new enemy, but Apple Bloom and the others were about to catch hell for it as well. Chrysalis knew she had to do something about it now.

You know what you have to do, the Little Voice in her head whispered. You need to teach these grubs who the real Queen is.

Chrysalis strode up to Diamond, watching as the furious grin on her face slowly started to give way to alarm. Chrysalis was a good head taller than Diamond, as she was with most girls her age, and she made that as clear as she could when she stood at her full height mere inches from Diamond, looking down at her.

“You've got it backwards, Diamond. You have no idea who you just made enemies with. The truth is, I’m actually as dangerous as you wish you were.” Chrysalis leaned in closer to her boring through the other girl’s eyes. “And if you try to make a move against me or Apple Bloom’s friends, I will fucking kill you.”

Diamond scoffed, but the slight tremor in her voice revealed that she believed it, at least on some level. “You’re just talk.”

With lightning speed, Chrysalis grabbed Diamond by the throat one-handed and squeezed.

“Hey! HEY!” Silver gasped, rushing forward to pull her off of her friend. Chrysalis effortlessly tossed her back with her other hand without breaking eye contact with Diamond. Cozy just stood off to the side, watching the whole thing go down from a safe distance.

“You don’t know a thing about me, Diamond,” Chrysalis said as the girl in her grasp began gasping for air. “I’ve taken lives before. It’s remarkable how easy it gets after the first few times. Killing you right now would barely even require any effort….”

Chrysalis held Diamond’s throat just a little longer, grinning wide and allowing Diamond to catch a glimpse of her changeling fangs, revealing them with a subtle touch of her shapeshifting power. Chrysalis waited until she could see the raw, primal fear of one looking death in the face before finally releasing her. Diamond collapsed to the ground, coughing and gasping for breath as Silver and Cozy looked on in disbelief.

Chrysalis never actually intended to kill her, of course. Chrysalis had sworn to herself the day she had saved Ms. Celestia’s life that she would never kill again. But Diamond and her friends didn’t need to know that.

“Stay out of my way,” Chrysalis said as she stood over the trembling, wide-eyed Diamond Tiara. “Or else next time, I won’t stop.”

Chrysalis turned and walked away again, and this time Diamond gave no parting remark. Chrysalis ignored the voice that told her she should have just ended the miserable runt once and for all.

She did, however, catch a whiff of the telltale scent from the puddle Diamond was making on the ground.

When Chrysalis arrived home that evening, she found Sable in the living room, grading the assignments he’d grabbed from his office at the Blanks that morning. The TV was on but muted, playing a game of baseball that Sable occasionally glanced up at.

“Hey Chrys,” he greeted as she set her bag down. “Have a fun day at Olde Towne?”

“It…turned out to be a lot more drama than I would have liked,” Chrysalis said. “But I think everything worked out for the best.”

“Oh?” Sable set aside the homework he was grading and looked up at her. He didn’t look suspicious of her, or on the verge of getting angry at her like he had the other night, but Chrysalis still felt reluctant to tell him about her day.

“Um…would you be mad if I said I got in another fight?” Nevertheless, Chrysalis was smart enough not to try to hide anything from Sable. That and…she wanted to talk to him about it.

Sighing, Sable said patiently, “I’d be less mad if you were completely honest with me.”

So, taking a deep breath, Chrysalis told Sable about the events of the day, including what she overheard in the bathroom, her fight with Rover, and subsequent confrontation with her so-called “friends.” At some point she’d sat down on the couch next to Sable, who listened patiently and silently until she was finished.

“Have to say, I’m not thrilled that you managed to get into two fights in as many days,” Sable said, and Chrysalis’s eyes found their way to the floor. “But.” Chrysalis looked back up at him. “I understand better than most that there are times when you need to stand your ground. In this case, I think you made the right call. And it’s good that you decided to cut ties with those girls. I had a bad feeling from the moment I met them yesterday.”

Chrysalis frowned and fidgeted her fingers. “Still…I probably could have done it without choking out Diamond.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

“Does that mean I’m going to get punished for this on top of what happened yesterday?” Chrysalis asked. “Double-grounded? Is that a thing?”

“Celestia and I talked for a long time after I dropped you off. She wanted to ground you for all of next week,” Sable said. “But having met your ‘friends’ yesterday, I told her it was more likely that you got pulled into a confrontation you wanted no part of.” Then he sighed. “I probably wouldn’t have raised my voice at you last night if I’d realized that then, of course. I’m sorry for that.”

Chrysalis nodded and Sable continued. “Anyway, with that in mind, we decided not to punish you this time.”

“And today’s incident?”

Sable smiled. “It’ll be our secret.”

Chrysalis returned his smile. “Thanks.”

“But three strikes and you’re out, okay?”

Getting off scot-free still sat poorly with Chrysalis, so after some thought she offered, “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to do a couple of days in ‘parent jail’ next week anyway.”

Sable tilted his head, and Chrysalis said, “Look, I want to prove that I’m really trying, okay?”

“Just the fact that you said that is already proof enough, Chrys,” Sable said. When Chrysalis refused to back down, he raised his hands in defeat and said, “Okay, if it’s that important to you, you’re grounded until Wednesday, young lady!”

Chrysalis giggled, “Thanks.”

“Y’know, you’re probably the first kid in history to thank her folks for grounding her.”

The two of them had a good chuckle at that. It didn’t even occur to Chrysalis that she’d all but referred to Celestia and Sable as her parents just then. She then remembered why she’d wanted to tell him about what happened today in the first place.

“The decision I made today…I think I owe it to you,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“‘Sodomy Sable takes phat cocks.’”

“Excuse me?” Sable exclaimed, furrowing his brow. “Am I gonna have to double-ground you for real?”

“It’s the graffiti. The one we saw where you work?” Chrysalis hastily corrected herself, and Sable nodded, suddenly remembering. “It kept popping into my head when I was about to beat up those two kids for Diamond Tiara. I didn’t know why at first, but I think it had something to do with what you said this morning. About the kid who probably wrote it.”

“Okay. You’ll have to remind me what I said,” Sable told her, glancing over at the still ungraded schoolwork on the small table next to the couch. “This morning was a long time ago.”

“You said that the only thing worse than the kind of kid who would write…that…was the kind of kid who could make others do it,” Chrysalis said. “At the time I thought you were talking about me. Thought you were telling me ‘I know what you are’ or something. But you were warning me about Diamond Tiara, weren’t you?”

Another thought suddenly occurred to Chrysalis then. “Was that the whole reason you showed me the Blanks in the first place? Were you…‘scaring me straight’?”

With an impish smile, Sable said, “I had a feeling you’d figure it out. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Chrys.” Without thinking, Sable reached over and patted her hand, having momentarily forgotten her discomfort at being touched. And the weird thing was, so did Chrysalis.

“The decision you made today…you don’t owe it to me,” Sable continued. “I did what I could to give you that push in the right direction, but the rest of it was all you. Give yourself more credit!” Sable was then looking somewhere past her. “Trust me…I know how hard it is to let go of a friend after you realize they aren’t the person you thought they were.”

Sable didn’t elaborate any further than that, and Chrysalis didn’t ask him to. It was around that moment Chrysalis realized her hand was still in his, and what surprised her the most was the realisation that she was the one holding on to him. Noticing what Chrysalis was looking at, Sable quickly pulled his hand away.

“Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. “I forgot you’re not comfortable with that yet.”

“No, it’s okay.” Chrysalis then realized now was a good time to clear the air between them on this point. “For the record, it’s nothing personal. You’re a good man, Sable. I know you really care about me, and I don’t hate you, it’s just….”

“It’s just my counterpart in Equestria, right?”

Chrysalis nodded. “I only ever met him a few times, but…he hurt me. Not quite to the extent that King Sombra hurt me, but…his was…a different kind of hurt. I know I-I’m not making much sense….”

“That’s okay. If you don’t want to talk about this….”

“But I do. I need to say it.” Taking a deep, trembling breath Chrysalis looked at him and said, “He was one of the officers who raped me while I was under the influence of Sombra’s mind control drug. That whole period of my life is just a fuzzy, nightmarish haze to me now, but he’s one of the ones I still remember.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sable said, looking at her with sad, empathetic eyes that set him far, far apart from his long dead counterpart.

“You don’t have to apologize for anything. I know it’s not your fault. You can’t choose who you look like; that’s my thing.” The two of them shared a brief smile at that. “But it’s gonna take me some time before I’m ready to…to let you in.”

“I understand. I’ll be here whenever you’re ready,” Sable said with a loving, paternal smile. “Okay?”

Chrysalis smiled back, her heart (and by extension her stomach) full of the love she could feel from Sable. Exhausted from the day—both physically and emotionally—Chrysalis put her feet up, leaned back into the couch and closed her eyes. As she started to doze off, she found herself thinking of her father: of the Tuscan nobleman who’d brought her into the world. He’d never really been a father to her; to him she was just a tool to be used for him to secure an alliance with another house. Ultimately it had been as much him as that bastard Baldassare that put her in the clutches of a dark unicorn from another world. She’d never even thought about what it would be like to have a real father since then, but after talking with Sable…the idea made her happy.

About half an hour later, Celestia arrived home carrying two bags of groceries. She intended to recruit the help of Sable and Chrysalis to help her unload the rest of them from her car, but one look at the scene in the living room made her decide that the rest of the groceries could keep a little while longer. Chrysalis was fast asleep on the couch, her head leaning on Sable’s shoulder, and what was more, she appeared to be sleeping peacefully, un-plagued by nightmares.

When Monday rolled around, Chrysalis felt like it was her first day all over again; she was all alone. She passed Diamond and her friends in the hall once or twice, but neither party said a word to the other. Seeing the other students talking to each other about whatever they did over the weekend filled Chrysalis with a pang of loneliness, but she would endure. She’d lived with loneliness for one thousand years, and she preferred it to being somebody’s tool any day.

At lunchtime, Chrysalis ate alone in one of the stalls in the girls’ bathroom. When she was finished, Chrysalis only went back to the cafeteria to return her tray. It was then that a familiar girl’s voice called out to her.

“Hey Chrys!”

A certain girl with red hair and a pink bow got up from a nearby table and went over to her. “There you are! I was hopin’ to talk to you.”

Chrysalis had a feeling she knew what about but prompted Apple Bloom to go on anyway. “Sweetie told us what happened at Olde Towne over the weekend. She’s really grateful to you. Hell, we all are!”

“Really?”

Apple Bloom nodded, her big pink bow bouncing comically. “Yeah, the way you fought to protect her and Button is practically all she’s talked about. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was into you!”

Chrysalis did know better and just shrugged. “Tell her it was no problem.”

She was about to continue on her way when Apple Bloom said, “Or you could tell her yourself.”

“Come again?”

Apple Bloom nodded a little past her, and Chrysalis didn’t need to look to know she was gesturing in Diamond’s direction.

“I couldn’t help but notice you haven’t been hangin’ out with Diamond and her buddies today.” Apple Bloom frowned. “You two have a falling out because of what happened?”

Sensing she was being stared at, Chrysalis shot a hard glare in the direction of the table Diamond and the others were sitting at. The girl in question hurriedly pretended to check her phone.

“We came to an...understanding,” Chrysalis said.

“Well, do you want to sit with us then?” Apple Bloom asked. “I think Scootaloo’s been dyin’ to ask you about the fight.”

Chrysalis couldn’t keep herself from grinning. Sitting with them couldn’t be worse than sitting alone in the bathroom.

“I suppose I could regale you all with a tale.”

Still smiling, Chrysalis followed Apple Bloom to where her other two friends were seated.

“Hey,” Chrysalis said as she sat down. She decided it was best to lead with reparations for the previous Friday. “I’m sorry about what happened at the Corner, by the way. I had a...chat with Diamond Tiara. Suffice to say, she won’t be bothering you any time soon.”

“Nice. What’d you do, beat her up?” Scootaloo asked.

Looking at the disapproving looks Scootaloo was taking from Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, Chrysalis said, “Not too badly.”

“Sweet! Did she cry?”

“Scoots!” Sweetie Belle hissed.

“No,” Chrysalis said with a grin. “But I believe she soiled herself.”

Scootaloo burst out in loud, obnoxious laughter and in spite of themselves, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle giggled along with her. Chrysalis then began to describe her battle for Sweetie Belle’s honor, making sure to embellish as needed. Already she felt way more at ease with them than she ever had with Diamond, and Chrysalis found herself disappointed when the bell rang and they had to depart for their afternoon classes.

“Can I…” Chrysalis started, fighting her own self-consciousness to ask, “Can I sit with you guys tomorrow too?”

“You can hang out with us after school if you want,” Sweetie said. “We were gonna go over to Scootaloo’s place to study and play games.

Chrysalis looked down. “I’d like to, but I’m in ‘parent jail’.”

“Well, if you have a decent computer, I’ll talk you through installing the game,” Scootaloo said, taking out her phone. “Here, lemme have your number.”

Across the cafeteria, Diamond scowled in the direction of the four girls while everyone got up to go to their afternoon classes. As she did, Diamond subconsciously felt around her own throat, if only to remind herself that she could, in fact, still breathe. To think that I ever wanted to be friends with that…psycho!

Her last confrontation with Chrysalis before the former parted ways with her played on a loop in Diamond’s head. It was all she could think about for the rest of that past weekend.

Because the inescapable truth was, Diamond had been terrified. Never before had she felt so powerless—so helpless—than when that girl had her by the throat. She had thought Chrysalis was no more than some unfortunate kid from a broken home who had the pure dumb luck of being buddies with Sunset Shimmer. That perception had changed when Chrysalis had started choking her.

I’ve taken lives before…. Killing you right now would barely even require any effort….

Punks like her talked a big game all the time, but when Chrysalis said it, Diamond had been looking straight into her eyes, and her gut instinct said she wasn’t lying. They were a killer’s eyes, sure enough. Diamond also had thought she’d seen something else just behind them. Something dark and sinister hiding in the deepest recesses of Chrysalis’s very being.

And what was more, there were those teeth. Diamond knew she hadn’t just been seeing things, Chrysalis’s canines had grown into fangs, like she was some kind of….

Some kind of what, Diamond? A vampire? Get real! Even so, she couldn’t shake the image.

“Di!”

Nearly jumping in her seat, Diamond gave an impatient, “What?”

Silver Spoon looked at her meekly. “I said, ‘are you coming?’ Classes are starting.”

How much time had she been lost in her thoughts? Most of the cafeteria had already emptied out, including the subject of Diamond’s disturbing thoughts. Cozy had already gotten up and was halfway to the exit when she turned and looked back at the still seated duo. After making eye contact with Silver, she merely shrugged and walked off to her next class.

“Are you feeling okay?” Silver asked. “You’ve been out of it since Saturday.”

“I’m fine!” Diamond growled, standing up from her seat. “But mark my words, we are not done!”

“Are you talking about…?”

“Chrysalis! That crazy bitch has a secret, and I’m going to use every connection at my disposal to find out what it is and ruin her!” Diamond grinned. “Starting today, I’m making her my special project!”

Chapter 4 - Chrysalis the Normal Highschool Girl

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The school day ended on Friday and just like at the end of the previous week, Chrysalis found herself heading towards the Sugarcube Corner Cafe. Unlike last Friday though, Chrysalis was in the company of a very different trio of girls. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo walked on either side of her, laughing amicably as they talked about the events of the day.

Overall, the experience of being friends with the three of them was a stark contrast to being friends with Diamond Tiara and her fellows—lackies? Henchmen?—the previous week. Chrysalis actually felt comfortable sharing her interests honestly and earnestly, and although Scootaloo gave her some ribbing on her taste in films, it all seemed genuinely good-natured. Although the tiny voice in the back of Chrysalis’s head warned her that these three could just be using her for their own ends like Diamond Tiara had been, Chrysalis chose to ignore it. It had only been a week ago, but Chrysalis already felt far wiser than she had when she had been friends with Diamond.

And on the note of her former false friend, Chrysalis had caught a glimpse of her across the street (along with Silver Spoon and Cozy Glow) as she and her new friends entered the Corner. Chrysalis saw it as an opportunity to remind them what the score was.

“C’mon,” she said, leading her friends to a certain round booth in the far corner of the establishment. The waitress who had been working the previous Friday was present and gave the group a suspicious look.

“Chrys, you know we can’t sit there,” Apple Bloom told her.

“No, I’m with Chrys on this one,” Scootaloo said, taking a seat in the booth with Chrysalis. “That bitch doesn’t own this table.”

“Please girls, I don’t want to get in another fight,” Sweetie Belle pleaded.

“We won’t,” Chrysalis said. “Trust me.”

Diamond and her friends entered the Corner at that moment, and her eyes locked with Chrysalis, seated in her favorite booth. There was a tense moment as the two glared at each other from across the restaurant, neither backing down. At last, Diamond Tiara puffed and led her friends to another table, sparing one last glare in Chrysalis’s direction before she did.

“See? What did I tell you?” Chrysalis asked, looking over at Apple Bloom with a proud grin.

But Apple Bloom’s gaze was still fixed in Diamond’s direction. Her animosity was strong, but Chrysalis thought she could taste a hint of something else. Regret maybe? Chrysalis thought about asking Apple Bloom what exactly had happened between her and Diamond, but her previous attempts to do so earlier in the week had been quite effectively dodged.

“Damn, she’s really scared of you,” Scootaloo said. “What’d you do to her?”

The thought of telling them that she’d nearly choked Diamond Tiara to unconsciousness made Chrysalis uneasy, so she just gave her a shrug in reply.

“Yeah, guess it’ll be good to have one of the larger booths for a change,” Apple Bloom said as she sat down. “Especially if our friends from Zacherle are joining us.”

Apple Bloom had mentioned earlier that day that they were meeting up with some of their friends from another school. According to her, the Zacherle Academy for Girls was a fancy private school up in San Palomino. Apparently, some of the girls in Sunset Shimmer’s family went there.

It was around the time they ordered (Apple Bloom and the others got what Chrysalis suspected were their usual milkshakes, while Chrysalis herself had gotten a fondant au chocolat smothered in a heaping scoop of French vanilla ice cream) that Chrysalis spotted two girls wearing jackets and skirts of a private school uniform enter. Sweetie waved them over, and the two headed their way as soon as they spotted them.

One of them was an Asian girl whose unfortunate face was a veritable minefield of acne, but it was the other girl that made Chrysalis fumble her spoon, dropping it onto the table’s surface with a loud clatter. Her two-toned cyan hair and matching eyes full of kindness were immediately familiar to Chrysalis.

“Good to see you girls,” Sweetie said, getting out of the booth to hug both of them when they approached. “Where’s Ribby?”

“She wasn’t feeling well so she went home early,” explained the apparent doppelganger.

“Was it bad today?” Sweetie asked, and both of the other girls nodded. “Okay, I’ll give her a call just to make sure she’s alright,” Sweetie said, stepping aside so the two newcomers could take her place in the booth. “Be right back!”

With that, Sweetie hurried off to make her call and the other two girls slid into the booth…right next to Chrysalis. She locked eyes with the counterpart of one of her greatest sins, who gave her an awkward smile a friendly, “Hello.”

“Oh yeah,” Scootaloo said after taking a loud slurp from her milkshake. “This is our new friend Chrysalis, she joined our school a couple of weeks ago.” Scootaloo then gestured to the crater-faced Asian girl and said, “Chrysalis, this is Crackle…”

Crackle gave a brief, “Hi,” and Scootaloo then gestured to the girl next to her. “And this is….”

“Coco Pommel…” Chrysalis muttered absent-mindedly.

Not quietly enough though. “Yes, how did you know?” Coco asked with an inquisitive tilt of her head. “Have we met before?”

Technically…. “No, but Sweetie told me about you,” Chrysalis lied, banking on the fact that the girl in question wasn’t present to say otherwise. “Pleasure to finally meet you!”

“Oh, likewise!” Coco said, smiling earnestly.

The genuine kindness in her eyes was a far cry from the angry glare that had been leveled at Chrysalis by Coco’s four-legged counterpart. That righteous fury was all Chrysalis could think about, even as the topic of conversation went on to other things.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to ask,” Apple Bloom said, addressing Chrysalis. “You have any plans for Halloween, Chrys? Because the girls and I were gonna go trick or treating together.”

“Aren’t we getting too old for that now?” Crackle asked.

“Free candy is free candy,” Scootaloo replied.

It was only recently that Chrysalis had found out what Halloween was. She had asked why the school was decorated with fake bats, spiders, and effigies of skeletons and ghouls earlier that week. Apple Bloom and the others had looked at her like she was insane.

“Uh, Halloween?” they had all said.

“I don’t know what that is. I grew up in Italy, remember?” Chrysalis said. For all she knew, modern Italy could very well have celebrated the holiday as well, but was banking on the fact that her friends knew as little about it as she did.

Her gambit had paid off, because Apple Bloom had said, “Oh right, I remember reading somewhere they don’t really celebrate it outside of English-speaking countries.”

Her friends had then proceeded to explain Halloween to her, clearly excited to share a piece of their culture with her. From what Chrysalis understood, it was a festival much like the Nightmare Night that the ponies of Equestria celebrated, involving costumes and candy with a spooky theme. She had immediately started thinking of ideas for a costume to wear.

Back in the present, Chrysalis swallowed the bite of ice cream on her spoon, fighting the mild brain freeze to say, “Sure, I’d love to come with you guys.” Chrysalis glanced at Coco briefly—too briefly to attract notice, she hoped—and added, “Is everyone gonna be there?”

“Of course,” Sweetie answered, having since returned from her phone call and rejoined the table. “It’s been sort of a tradition for the three of us to go over to Apple Bloom’s place and trick or treat around there.”

“Her family really goes all out on Halloween,” Scootaloo added.

“Yup, and the more the merrier!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“It’ll be our first time spending Halloween with them too!” Coco said with an optimistic smile. “Should be fun!”

Chrysalis tried her best to return it. “Well, I guess I need to get my costume soon then!”

The six of them spent the next forty minutes or so just enjoying their sweets and each other’s company, talking about all sorts of things (mostly about how “lit” Halloween was going to be on Monday).

“Hmm…” Sweetie Belle muttered as she stared at her phone screen.

“Something wrong?” Chrysalis asked.

“I’m worried about Twist.”

“Who?” Scootaloo asked, not bothering to look up from her own phone screen.

“She’s in our math class?” Apple Bloom said. “She went to school with us across the field for years? We’ve practically known her as long as we’ve known each other?”

Scootaloo’s face remained blank for a second before Chrysalis saw realization dawn on it. “Is she that really dorky girl with the glasses and frizzy red hair?”

“The one who’s had braces practically her entire life, yeah.”

Chrysalis thought she remembered seeing someone around school matching that description the week before. “Why are you worried, Sweetie?” she asked.

“Haven’t any of you noticed she hasn’t been at school for the entire week?”

The girls all exchanged a look. “Well…guess I assumed her family’s taking a trip or something.”

“Yeah, well I’m on her Facebook page now and she hasn’t updated it since Saturday.” Sweetie Belle turned her phone around so the others could see.

Scootaloo leaned closer and watched as Sweetie scrolled up and down Twist’s page. “Shit, that girl loves taking pictures of food, huh? There’s enough here to account for every meal she’s ever had!”

“Exactly! Right up until….” Sweetie turned the phone screen back towards herself so she could read the information off it. “Saturday October 22^nd at 1:15pm at Jill’s Sandwich Deli, Olde Towne Shopping Center. After that, nothing.”

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. She had been at the shopping center on Saturday with Diamond and the others. They’d even considered having lunch at Jill’s Sandwich Deli. Had Chrysalis seen her?

“She probably just had a family emergency out of town,” Coco said, her usual cheerful friendliness giving way to a melancholy look. “Just saying. When my Nana…started slipping away, my family and I pretty much had to scramble to her hospital here so we could…s-so we could say goodbye….”

Crackle reached over and rubbed her friend’s shoulder, clearly seeing that the memories of that time were still painful to her. “I didn’t have time to really talk to any of my old friends about it,” Coco continued. “And posting updates on my Facebook page was pretty much the last thing on my mind.”

“Exactly, just give it time, Sweetie,” Crackle said, a comforting arm still around Coco’s shoulders. “I’m sure you’ll see a post on her timeline in another day or so explaining she was off in Orange County to say goodbye to her dying uncle or something.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Sweetie Belle conceded. “I’ve just never known her to go completely silent on social media.”

“Also, we haven’t really even talked to her since grade school,” Apple Bloom said. “If she’s out of town dealing with family stuff, she’s not gonna go out of her way to tell any of us about it.”

Sweetie nodded again. “Yeah okay, makes sense.”

It wasn’t long after that the six of them decided it was time to head out. So having paid for their sweets, the group of girls went to the exit. They bumped into two girls Chrysalis recognized from a few of her classes, Toola Roola and Coconut Cream, who also seemed to be heading out. Chrysalis wasn’t exactly friends with them, but got along with them well enough, and exchanged a nod as they stepped out the door and started going their separate ways.

“See you all online tonight?” Scootaloo asked before they did.

“Oh, forgot to mention, I’m going with my guardians to have dinner with Sunset’s family,” Chrysalis said. “I might be on later, but I dunno. Depends on how late we stay over.”

“Fair enough. I’ll teabag some extra noobs in your honor!”

Chrysalis laughed and gave her goodbyes before turning and going down the street with Apple Bloom, who rode the same bus as her.

As they walked a good distance away, Apple Bloom asked, “Hey, everything alright, Chrys?”

Puzzled, Chrysalis replied, “Yeah, why?”

“Well…I don’t really know how to say this, but…when you saw Coco, it was like you’d seen a ghost.”

Have I really become that transparent? Chrysalis could remember a time when no one could ever tell what she was thinking; even within her own hive.

“That’s…I…” Chrysalis stammered as she desperately tried to think of a way to explain what Apple Bloom had picked up on.

It wasn’t like Chrysalis could tell her the truth: that it was Coco’s counterpart from another world that had her on edge. Or more accurately, the thought of what she’d done to her. Even if she could make Apple Bloom understand that Chrysalis was from another world full of magic and ponies, she would never be able to explain that she’d captured and experimented on pony Coco Pommel’s pregnant mother to create a changeling-pony hybrid. Her friend would never look at her the same way again.

“You know, you can talk to me and the girls about, y’know, whatever’s on your mind,” Apple Bloom said, giving her a sympathetic look. “We can all tell you’ve had a rough time in the past, but that’s okay! I promise we won’t think any less of you for being honest.” A hint of a scowl then found its way across Apple Bloom’s face. “I’m not Diamond Tiara. You can trust me.”

“Right, speaking of honesty, when are you gonna tell me about what really happened between you and her anyway?”

“Fair point,” Apple Bloom said, looking away. “Forget I said anything then.”

Chrysalis’s tactic worked: Apple Bloom was no longer asking her about why she had such a strange reaction to Coco. But in doing so, Chrysalis could feel herself widening the gap of trust between them. No matter how much she tried to open up to Apple Bloom and the others, there was still so much she couldn’t tell them, which in turn made them reluctant to open up to her.

Chrysalis sighed. She couldn’t help but feel like she was damned no matter what she did.

Across the street a fair distance from the Sugar Cube Corner Cafe, a mud brown panel van sat idling. The side of the van read “S & S Pest Removal,” and featured a logo of a cockroach under a fly-swatter. Two men sat in the front seats, one with long hair and a goatee and the other with a long scar under his left eye. Silently, they watched the foot traffic on the street, paying particular attention to the groups of young girls coming out of Sugar Cube Corner.

As the girls started to disperse, the bearded man turned to the scarred man and asked, “What do you think, Sulfide? One of them?”

Studying the girls closely, like food at a buffet, the scarred man—"Sulfide”—simply said, “Yeah.”

Looking again at his partner, the bearded man shook his head. “Would it kill you to give more than one word answers every once in a while? We get it: you’re very scary!”

“Only one person gets to tell me what to do, Culpea, and it ain't you.”

Sighing, the bearded man—Culpea—started the engine and began to pull away from the curb. They couldn’t stay too long, or someone might notice. For what they were doing, they needed to be careful.

“You’re always such a joy to work with, oh brother mine,” Culpea said. The other responded with a neutral grunt.

With a start, Sable opened his eyes, momentarily forgetting where he was. He was seated at his desk in his office at the Blanks, the consistent hum of the fluorescent lights his only company. Classes had ended for the day, and Sable had sent home the students serving detention with him an hour later (at least, the ones who had even bothered to show up). After that, Sable had gone back to his office to get some work done before packing up to leave. But he’d been fighting his heavy eyelids all day, and now that he finally had a moment to himself, he decided to close them…just for a few minutes.

Checking his watch, Sable’s fears were confirmed when he saw it had been forty minutes. Sure, he’d been up all night grading the homework he hadn’t had time for earlier because he’d been too busy managing SIREN affairs (as he had been for the entire previous week), but still. Sable had been the master of power naps when he was in the Army. He’d never even needed an alarm to get him up when he needed to be. For the time to get away from him this much….

As Sable exited his office, walking briskly towards the staff entrance, he found himself crossing paths with his boss, who was either headed out himself or simply going for a smoke break.

“What are you still doing here, Sable?” Principal Sombra asked. “I thought you told me you and Celestia were seeing friends this evening.”

Rubbing his eyes, Sable allowed a sigh to escape that would have remained confined if he had been more alert. “Yeah, I just…lost track of time. Just heading out now.”

Sombra gave him a look that Sable would probably have recognized as concerned if he wasn’t so out of it. “Are you doing okay, Sable?” he asked.

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” Sable asked, continuing on his way down the hall.

Sombra matched his pace with him. “C’mon man, I know you well enough to know when you’re burning out.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Even if I didn’t, the rest of the staff can tell something’s up,” Sombra gave him a half grin. “Red Horse even offered to give you her unused sick days. I’ve never seen that woman give away a day off to anyone before.”

“Huh,” was all Sable could think to say. This wasn’t the first time someone had expressed concern that he was running himself ragged. Celestia had nagged him to take more breaks throughout the week, and even Chrysalis seemed to notice he wasn’t one hundred percent.

“Seriously, is there anything I can do to help?” Sombra asked as they stepped out into the faculty parking lot. “I can get a sub to cover some of your classes….”

“No. I appreciate it, Sombra. I really do, but this has nothing to do with my work here.”

Sombra nodded. “Problems at home then?”

“Things are actually going pretty well at home. Chrysalis is finally starting to open up.”

“So, what’s going on then?”

Sable realized he was going to have to give his colleague and friend something, so he added, “I’ve recently taken on another job.”

Sombra let out a good-natured laugh and asked, “What, am I not paying you enough?”

“It has nothing to do with money. It’s just…something I wanted to do.” Sable then added, “And no, it’s not something I’m at liberty to discuss.”

“Uh oh. ‘Not at liberty to discuss?’” Sombra gave him a knowing look. “I haven’t heard those words from someone since my Marine days.”

No point in hiding that much now. “I’ve been brought on as a consultant for a…special project. Can’t say much more than that.”

“Right, I understand,” Sombra said as they approached Sable’s car. “However—and I feel like a fuckin’ heel for saying this to a friend, but—I have my duties as principal to consider.” Sable had a good idea he knew where this was going. “If you keep going on like this by the time mid-year performance reviews come up, I’m going to have to say something.”

“Right, I’ll keep that in mind,” Sable said as he climbed into his car.

Sombra leaned an arm against the roof and Sable rolled down the window as he started up the engine.

“Look, whatever this second job is you’ve taken on, I highly suggest you take the time to think about whether it’s more or less important than this one,” Sombra said. “And if there’s anything I can do to help, my door’s always open.”

“Thanks, Sombra.”

“Now, you get going before you have an angry girlfriend to deal with on top of everything else!”

With that, Sombra stepped back and Sable pulled out of his spot. He was right, Sable knew. His work in SIREN was important, but so was his work at the Blanks. He’d invested so much time into the kids at the school, but it was getting more and more clear to Sable that he couldn’t go on like this; something was going to have to give.

When Chrysalis arrived home, she found Celestia on the love seat looking at her phone. Chrysalis noticed that she’d prettied herself up a little more than was usual for her at this time of the evening. Nothing too fancy, just a little bit of extra make-up, softer looking hair, and she was wearing the nice necklace that Sable had apparently gotten her for her birthday. On the table beside her was what appeared to be a paper bag containing a freshly purchased bottle of wine.

“Hey Celestia,” Chrysalis said. “I’m not too late for us to get going, am I?”

“No, but Sable might be. He just texted me that he was leaving work five minutes ago.”

Chrysalis nodded, then took another look up and down the casual but no less pretty outfit Celestia was wearing. She then looked down at her own frumpy gray sweater and jeans.

“Should I change into something nicer?” she asked.

“You’re fine.”

“No really, I could literally do it with the snap of a finger.”

Celestia smiled. “Tell you what, once we get there, if you feel underdressed, you can change right there in front of all of us.” The woman grinned. “I’m sure it might even be a topic of conversation.”

Chrysalis smiled back, remembering that this would be the first time in weeks that she could go somewhere without having to hide what she really was. That thought brought her back to what happened that afternoon, and the implications of what it meant.

“You and Twilight Velvet have been friends since you were in high school, right?” Chrysalis asked as she sat on the love seat next to Celestia.

“Before that, actually. But yes, we stayed friends throughout high school and beyond it.”

“But that doesn’t happen with most high school friendships, right?”

“It’s rare, but it happens more often than you’d think,” Celestia explained. “Velvet and I were lucky enough that our lives took us in a similar direction, and we even ended up as roommates in college.”

Chrysalis frowned as she tried to imagine what her own life would look like in four years. Would she still be in touch with Apple Bloom and the others? She recalled the way the afternoon had ended for them, and realized she strongly doubted it.

“Something happened today,” Chrysalis started.

“Oh?”

“Nothing serious.” Chrysalis then gave a mischievous smile. “I didn’t get into another fight or anything.” Then as quickly as it had come, her smile was gone. “But I ran into Coco Pommel’s counterpart today.”

“Oh.” Celestia had been there when the pony (by all outward appearances anyway) Coco Pommel had confronted her over the crime of her creation.

“Yeah, apparently she’s friends with my friends. Nice girl, but….”

“But seeing her didn’t exactly bring back very pleasant memories.”

Chrysalis nodded, and then did something that she hadn’t done since the day she had first arrived in the human world under the care of Celestia and Sable. The green flame of her magic washed over her body, and Chrysalis willed herself to return to her true form. Celestia barely flinched, but Chrysalis could tell the silent horror was still there when she looked at her—not horror at Chrysalis herself, but at what had been done to her.

Chrysalis looked down at her own mismatched forearms—her right arm normal, ending with a regular human hand, while her left arm below the shoulder was a chitinous changeling foreleg, complete with hoof and full with holes from rotting. She lifted her sweater and traced her hand along one of the many seams where human skin and changeling chitin were merged together like Frankenstein’s monster.

“When I made Coco what she is now, it never even occurred to me that I was doing to her exactly what Sombra did to me centuries before.” Chrysalis hugged herself. “She didn’t seem to think that I deserved a second chance…and I can’t say I disagree with her.”

“Everyone deserves a second chance, as long as they make a sincere effort to make the most of it. Like you are,” Celestia said, clearly wanting to hold her but holding herself back. Chrysalis knew she was just trying to be considerate of her discomfort where physical contact was concerned, but part of her couldn’t help but think she was repulsed by her.

“Maybe, but…I don’t know. If King Sombra somehow came back to life and proclaimed that he was a changed pony who’d seen the error of his ways, there’s no way I’d be able to forgive him. No matter how sincere he was.”

“And that would be well within your right. Getting a second chance isn’t the same as being forgiven by those you’ve wronged. You can have one without the other.”

“I guess you’re right, but….” Chrysalis trailed off.

“But?”

She realized that as much as she loved and trusted Celestia, she may not have been the right person to talk to about what was really bothering her about her encounter with the human Coco Pommel.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Celestia gave her a look that indicated to Chrysalis that she was going to worry about it anyway. So, Chrysalis decided to put her at ease with another first: she put an arm around Celestia (after first changing back to her preferred normal human form) and gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

“Thanks for the talk,” she said before getting up.

Deciding that she was going to change into something a little nicer after all (the human way, not the changeling way), Chrysalis went to the bathroom first to get in a shower. She felt like she needed one after exposing her monstrous true form. As she did, she thought about what she was going to say when they arrived at the Light household that evening. Celestia may not be the right person with whom to talk about what was on her mind, but she could think of one or two who would be perfect.

As she entered the bathroom, Chrysalis caught a glance of herself in the mirror and noticed part of her forehead where her horn would have protruded still showed a bit of black changeling chitin. That’s weird…. She’d never had a piece of her true form linger after a transformation before. It took her less than a moment to correct her appearance, but she found that it took a great deal more effort than usual. It was like she had to fight her own body to stay in her regular human form.

What was more, she had this inexplicable, insane feeling that her reflection was watching her, even as she turned her back to the mirror to enter the shower.

As the three of them drove up to the Light family’s mansion, Chrysalis noticed that like her school, it was decorated for the holiday. Fake bats and spiderwebs hung all around the outside and carved pumpkins with grinning faces lined the front porch. Most amusingly, a dummy witch was attached to the tree in front of the house, creating the appearance that she crashed face first while flying her broom.

They rang the doorbell, and Twilight Velvet greeted Celestia at the door with a warm smile and a hug. Just watching them, Chrysalis could almost see the years of friendship binding them together. Velvet greeted Sable next, and then turned to Chrysalis.

“You holding up alright?” she asked.

“I’m alright, yeah.” Chrysalis wondered if Velvet entirely believed her. Even without the ability to taste emotions, some humans always seemed to know what others were feeling, and Velvet was one of the best at it. As a child psychologist, she quite literally made a career out of it.

But she only smiled and said, “The triplets are still training with Mr. Clyde, but the rest of the girls are all with Spike in the rec room playing games.”

Instinctively, Chrysalis looked to Celestia for approval—an unnecessary gesture, but Celestia gave her an encouraging smile and a nod all the same. So, remembering where the recreation room was from the previous times she’d been here, Chrysalis headed that way without delay. She heard the sound of enthusiastic shouting accompanied by the busy sound effects of a video game as she got closer and entered the rec room to find four siblings on the couch playing some kind of colorful kart racing game.

“Always with the blue shells, huh Sunny?” a boy’s voice—Spike, Chrysalis recalled—moaned.

Beside him on the couch, Sunset’s response was to stick her tongue out before immediately exclaiming, “Wait, shit!” as the brief moment with her eyes off the screen caused her digital kart to drive straight off a cliff. Also on the couch were the other two siblings of the ridiculously large family: Twilight Sparkle and Octavia Melody. Of all of them, only Spike and Twilight were siblings by blood. As Chrysalis understood it, Octavia was a cousin who’d lived with them for so long she might as well have been a sibling, and Sunset Shimmer had been officially adopted relatively recently.

Not wanting to interrupt, Chrysalis waited until they had finished their race before making her presence known with a casual, “Hey.”

Twilight nearly jumped straight off the couch in surprise while Sunset just gave a casual, “Hey Chrys.” Had she known she was there the whole time?

“How long have you been standing there? You nearly gave me a heart attack!” Twilight, on the other hand, was definitely not so aware.

Spike barely even looked at her as he greeted her, already picking his kart and character for the next race. Of all of them, Octavia was the one who actually got up and went over to give her a hug. “Good to see you, Chrys.”

The hug didn’t carry the weight of years of friendship like Celestia and Velvet’s had earlier, but there was definitely a certain closeness to it: Chrysalis didn’t subconsciously recoil from the touch, at the very least.

Chrysalis’s friendship with Octavia was an odd one, to say the least. It was hard to believe that little more than a month ago, Chrysalis’s main goal had been to kill the girl now tenderly embracing her. The only crime Octavia had been guilty of was the misfortune of carrying the bloodline of King Sombra. At the time, Chrysalis thought that was enough to warrant her death, if only to sate her need for revenge on the tyrant himself—something she never had the chance to take. It had been another of Sombra’s misfortunate descendants in Equestria who had taught her that revenge—especially by proxy—simply wasn’t worth it.

Friendship with Octavia had other baggage, of course. The raven-haired girl was almost the spitting image of her ancestor, Musica Allegra. Well, as a human anyway, which was exactly how the earth pony musician had spent the rest of her life after escaping King Sombra’s clutches. Seeing Octavia was always a bittersweet reminder that Chrysalis’s dear friend from that dark time had lived a full life after escaping from King Sombra, even if it meant they’d never see each other again.

Chrysalis felt lucky that Octavia had chosen to forgive her, both for her misguided attempt to take her life in vengeance, as well as for the role Chrysalis had played in robbing Octavia of her humanity…or half of it, anyway.

“How are the, uh…y’know…?” Chrysalis stammered.

“The legs?” Octavia asked. She then held up her hand and removed the ring on her finger, causing the illusory magic it generated to fade away.

Chrysalis looked down at Octavia’s legs, seeing the gray coat of pony fur and unshorn fetlocks over hooves, with the long horse tail of raven black hair dangling behind them. She forced herself to pull her eyes back to Octavia’s still human face, with which the half shape-shifted girl tried to smile.

“They’re pretty easy to walk with now,” she said. “Sometimes I actually forget this is what they really look like.”

Chrysalis tried to smile back but couldn’t quite manage, and she found her eyes drifting back down to the pair of pony legs. “I’m sor—"

“No. None of that!” Octavia said, lifting Chrysalis’s chin so her gaze met her human eyes again. “I told you I don’t blame you for what happened anymore. Melody is the one who’s to blame for this, and she’s gone now.”

Chrysalis knew she was right, of course. The entity in question was now confined to the Alicorn Amulet, which was itself buried deep underground in a remote part of Equestria. Neither would hurt anyone else ever again.

“So,” Octavia said, putting her enchanted ring back on, returning her lower body to normal human legs. “Let’s forget about all this and just try to have fun tonight, okay?”

Nodding in agreement, Chrysalis followed Octavia back to the couch, where the others had already started another race. As Chrysalis sat down, Sunset gave her a barely perceptible nod—it seemed likely that Sunset was the one to keep the game going in their absence, for the sole reason of allowing Chrysalis and Octavia to have their moment in relative privacy.

“Here,” Octavia said, handing Chrysalis a game controller. “You can take my spot in the next race. I’m trash at Mario Kart!”

After a number of friendly virtual kart races, Twilight Velvet summoned her children to help her set the table, slice the bread, and make whatever other preparations were necessary for dinner. When Chrysalis asked if there was something she could do, Velvet’s answer was simply to relax: Guests were under no circumstances to toil in the kitchen. So Chrysalis wandered over to the living room where Celestia and Sable were seated, talking with a pair of familiar faces.

“Hello, Chrysalis,” greeted the young woman with gold-streaked rose and violet hair. The man with two-toned blue hair beside her greeted Chrysalis with a nod.

Today has just been full of painful doppelgangers, Chrysalis thought. Unlike with Coco, however, Chrysalis had been expecting to see Cadance and Shining Armor. The latter was Twilight Velvet’s first born, after all, and the former his fiancée. Still, being ready didn’t ease the conflicting emotions she felt when she looked at their faces. Their pony counterparts were among her most hated enemies, but the things she had done to them were unforgivable.

“School treating you alright?” Shining asked.

“It’s okay,” Chrysalis said casually as she grabbed a cracker from the plate that had been set out and took a bite.

“You have a boyfriend yet?” Cadance asked with a mischievous smile.

Chrysalis suddenly and inexplicably found herself choking on the aforementioned cracker. After a moment or two of coughing and sputtering, she managed to clear her throat enough to reply, “W-whah?”

“Just saying. A gorgeous girl like you must have guys lining up for miles around.”

“Well…” Chrysalis started. Admittedly, there was some truth to what Cadance said. Chrysalis had certainly picked up on a number of feelings of attraction directed towards her over the course of the past two weeks. Though, no one had exactly approached her, and Chrysalis didn’t know what she would do if they did. Her experience when it came to matters of love was…complicated, for reasons in part pertaining to the counterparts to the very couple she was now talking to.

“I think Chrys has other priorities since starting school,” Celestia said.

“Exactly, dating hasn’t really been on my mind,” Chrysalis said, which was only half true. Every once in a while, when she’d have the strange yet pleasant dream of that handsome unicorn knight, she’d wake up thinking how nice it would be if she had someone like that. After that reality would set in, and she’d accept that it wasn’t in the cards. Not for a long time, anyway.

“Of course, I was only teasing. I’m sure it’s been difficult enough just adjusting to your new life here,” Cadance said, her mischievous tone giving way to one more empathetic. “And on that note, I wanted to tell you that you can always reach out to me if you need to talk. About anything.” She gave a nod and a smile to Celestia as she said, “Tia’s always been a great aunt to me, so I want to do my best to be a great cousin to you, okay?”

Returning the smile, Chrysalis said, “I’ll keep that in mind. I have your number.”

It was always nice to know she had one more person in her corner, but it was just a little weird that it was her. It was still hard for Chrysalis to process a version of Cadance who looked at her with kindness rather than fury, but that seemed to be the pattern of her new life.

She chatted with the four of them for another ten minutes before Velvet called everyone to the dining room for dinner. The dining room table was large, befitting a mansion this size, but it still seemed crowded. In addition to herself and her guardians, Chrysalis counted Shining and Cadance, Velvet and Night, their other four children, and the triplets (who having just returned from a workout, looked exhausted). Even their trainer, a big dark-skinned man named Troubleshoes, joined them for dinner.

The food was delicious, and the company even more so. Chrysalis had never quite tasted anything like the love shared between the family around her. It was a delicate mix of the sugary sweetness of familial love mixed in with the bittersweetness of bonds formed between soldiers who have been through hell together. This family and those around them had seen a lot and were all the closer for it. Such a unique blend of emotions, and what was more, Chrysalis was a part of it. Not feeding on it under the guise of another as she used to do, but actively sharing in it as herself.

The family talked about the happenings of their lives, current events, music and pop culture, and occasionally someone would ask Chrysalis about her own life. She was happy to answer, but mostly she was content to simply listen quietly and take everything in. Even when the topic of conversation ventured to the peculiarities of transdimensional escapades.

“Probably the weirdest thing I learned since coming to this world was human mythology about unicorns,” Sunset said, answering a question posed by Troubleshoes. “I laughed pretty hard when I read the part about only virgins being able to see them.”

With an impish chuckle, Twilight looked between all the adults at the table and asked, “Just checking, but you all can see her, right? It’s not just me?”

The whole table shared a good laugh about that, and Sunset said, “Seriously though, whoever thought up the ‘pure, virginal’ image of a unicorn has definitely never actually met one. I’m probably the least pure and innocent out of all of you!”

“Oh, you sweet summer child,” Celestia said, taking a sip of her wine. “Velvet and I probably have you beaten in that category by a long shot.”

Interestingly, both Twilight and Sonata nodded with a look in their eyes that indicated to Chrysalis they knew more than they probably wanted to. Chrysalis paid it no mind, though. She had just been issued a challenge and would not let it go unanswered.

So taking a sip of her cola, Chrysalis drew on something she’d read on the internet and replied, “Hold my beer.”

The rest of the table laughed, and Celestia gave her a “disapproving mom” look. “Hold your what now, young lady?”

“It’s just a meme, Ms. Celestia,” Spike explained. “I don’t think she’s actually had beer before.” He then gave Chrysalis a quizzical look. “Uh…have you?”

“I’m centuries old. Of course I’ve had alcohol before,” Chrysalis said, looking at Celestia. Her disapproving glare was slipping away, but Chrysalis decided to placate it anyway. “Don’t worry, it was a long time ago and I don’t think I’ll be drinking again for a long time yet.”

“Damn right you’re not,” Celestia said.

Velvet however, only grinned. “Is it bad that I kind of want to know the story behind that?”

“It was like, eight centuries ago, so I don’t really remember all the details,” Chrysalis explained, doing her best to recall the memory. “I was personally infiltrating some duke’s castle—I forget why—disguised as some noblemare he’d been courting. He offered me some sparkling wine, and I actually liked it enough to procure a stockpile of it for my chambers in the hive. Well, one night after a rather embarrassing defeat I indulged in a little too much.”

“Blacked out?” Sable asked.

“No, but I was intoxicated enough that I pretty seriously embarrassed myself in front of my changelings…or I would have, if any of them remembered that night either.”

“Oh my God…” Sunset gasped, covering her mouth with her hand to hold back the snickers as she likely realized where this story was going.

“I woke up the next morning with a pretty killer headache…and had to babysit an entire hive of drunk changelings.”

At that, Sunset couldn’t contain her laughter any more as the rest of the table just looked on confused.

“So…what? Did your changelings raid your liquor supply while you were passed out?” Troubleshoes asked.

“Nope. They hadn’t had a drop!”

Confused, everyone looked from Chrysalis to Sunset, assuming that her cackling could only mean that she understood exactly what was happening.

“Sorry…I’m sorry…” Sunset wheezed as she caught her breath. “Chrysalis doesn’t know it, but she just put to rest a scientific debate that’s been ongoing among unicorn scholars for centuries! I always thought the only way the scientific community would ever find an answer to it would be if they got to experiment on a live changeling queen. Instead, one just confirmed it over dinner!”

Sunset started laughing again. His own curiosity evidently piqued, Night Light leaned forward. “Well, I wasn’t expecting to be present for a brand-new scientific breakthrough tonight, but I’m excited to hear about it. What area of study are we closing the book on?”

Clearing her throat, Sunset said in the most scholarly voice she could muster, “The effects of mind-altering substances on the changeling hive mind. Or, whether a changeling queen can get her entire hive drunk off their asses just by drinking alone!”

That explanation was met with laughter and further confusion in equal parts across the table. As a part of the latter category, Adagio just sighed and said, “So, what’s for dessert?”

The answer to her question turned out to be a cherry pie. Once all was done and it was time to clean up, Chrysalis left the table feeling more full than she had in a very long time.

As everyone started wandering away from the dinner table, either to clean up or—in the case of those who had prepared the dinner—sit down for a much-needed rest, Sable figured he’d volunteer himself to assist with the clean-up. Chrysalis offered to help, as did the triplets, Cadance, Shining and Troubleshoes, and together they made short work of the dishes before Chrysalis went off to hang out with the other kids. The triplets made to do the same before Troubleshoes stopped them.

“And where do you three think you’re going?” he asked sternly.

“Going to relax for the evening?” Aria answered, but Troubleshoes shook his head.

“Nope, you’re going back to the bunker to run the obstacle course.”

“After we just ate?” Sonata asked. “I’ve got the biggest food baby in me right now, and I will not be keeping it down if I have to run some more!”

“You think the enemy will care about your damn food baby, Cmdr. Dusk? Ten laps around the obstacle course, double time!”

“Aye!” The triplets nodded and set out to their task. Sable noted the absence of the spring in their step that they had after dinner.

“Are you both going down to supervise them?” Shining Armor asked. Sable and Troubleshoes nodded and Shining asked, “Mind if I join you?”

“Looking to poach them for the FBI?” Troubleshoes joked.

Concerningly, Shining Armor didn’t return any of the mirth. “I need to discuss something with you both, and I figure the bunker is the most secure place to do so.”

Sable and Troubleshoes exchanged a look. So, this was a serious “business” talk then, both silently acknowledged.

“Sure, no problem,” Sable said, leading the way to the hidden elevator leading down to the underground bunker that was SIREN’s headquarters and training facility.

Sable had a bad feeling that whatever Shining wanted to discuss with them, it was going to cause him a headache for the foreseeable future. Perhaps Troubleshoes’s old mercenary “friend” had decided to rear his ugly mug. And then Shining told them the situation, and Sable’s heart sank when he realized that Troubleshoes wasn’t the one he needed to worry about.

In lieu of more video games, Chrysalis and the other kids ended up playing one of the board games in the rec room at Twilight’s suggestion. Spike posited that this was because Twilight was terrible at video games, to which Twilight responded by tightly pinching the boy’s earlobe. Now, they were about forty minutes into a game of Monopoly, which Chrysalis had picked up rather quickly. She commanded a modest empire that included a monopoly of green properties (complete with little green houses), two railroads, and a small handful of other properties. Among those properties was Boardwalk, which was coveted by Spike, himself in possession of Park Place. A sinister grin formed across Chrysalis’s face as her turn came and she enacted her plan.

“Spike. You know what I want,” Chrysalis said, holding up her Boardwalk card. “Illinois and Atlantic Avenue.”

Spike looked from the dark blue card in her hand to the red and yellow properties in question sitting in his own deck, practically unused. Chrysalis had the rest of each of the like-colored properties in her possession already. Unfathomable power lay just within her grasp, and Chrysalis uttered an evil chuckle.

Twilight then leaned over to Spike and deadpanned, “As your attorney, I advise against this deal.” She had been saying that throughout the game to everyone who was—in her eyes—about to enter into a bad deal.

So, to help sweeten hers, Chrysalis added, “In addition to Boardwalk, I will also let you stay for free at any one of my properties for the next three turns!”

His desire for Boardwalk ultimately winning over, Spike turned to Twilight and said, “I waive my right to legal representation!” and handed over his two properties.

Chrysalis wasn’t sure whether the stunned look on Twilight’s face was because Spike actually took Chrysalis’s deal, or whether it was shock at her kid brother’s surprisingly sophisticated vocabulary. It mattered little to Chrysalis either way as she happily turned over Boardwalk to the child before setting up more little green houses along the two new monopolies she had gained.

“The deal is complete!” Octavia announced in a comically deep dramatic voice, having opted out of actually playing to assume the role of the banker. She cited “Twilight related trauma” as her reason why she didn’t enjoy playing Monopoly anymore, but she seemed to be having fun hamming it up as the banker.

“Well Spike, I hope you’re happy,” Twilight said. “You just gave Chrysalis control of that entire half of the board!”

Holding the two most expensive properties in the game, Spike simply said, “I have no regrets.”

But as Chrysalis predicted, focusing all of his resources on acquiring and building up those properties was his undoing, as the other players managed to avoid landing on them with ease. What was more, he ended up wasting the three turns of free stays Chrysalis had given him by ending up in jail, only to land on Illinois (now with a hotel!) after getting out.

The game went on for another hour, as Spike and Sunset (who had barely one monopoly to her name) went bankrupt. Then it was a fierce war between the Chrysalis Empire and the Twilight Sparkle Dynasty. It was a close battle, and Chrysalis had been worried when she had to foreclose on a number of her properties, but in the end Twilight conceded defeat.

“Wow, I think you just broke a ten-year winning streak, Chrys,” Twilight said. “Well done!”

“Her reign of terror is finally over!” Octavia exclaimed, and Spike laughed.

As they cleaned up and put away the game, Sunset said, “You know, you’ve really impressed me, Chrys.”

With a shrug, Chrysalis said. “What can I say? I’ve always been good at conducting business ruthlessly.”

Sunset laughed and said, “I’m not talking about the game. You’ve grown a lot in the three weeks you’ve been living in this world.”

Chrysalis was taken aback. “You think so?”

“Mmhmm. You’re like a whole new person. The scared, broken girl who first came through the portal with us is a distant memory.”

Chrysalis nodded. “I have to admit, ever since I befriended Apple Bloom and the others, I’ve felt…different. I think…this is the first time I’ve ever felt comfortable with myself. Even tonight…just being around all of you has made me feel like…like ‘Chrysalis the normal highschool girl’ isn’t just another disguise I wear.”

With a radiant smile, Sunset said, “Good. I’m glad!”

Then Chrysalis thought of her encounter earlier that day and remembered that there was still an issue where that was concerned.

“Actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you all night. I just couldn’t find a good time to ask it,” she said.

“Okay. Shoot.”

Chrysalis looked from Sunset to the others before asking, “Have your friends and family always known the truth about what you really are?”

“My main group of friends at Canterlot High have known ever since they became my friends,” Sunset said. “Before that, they weren’t exactly my friends. They were more like….”

“Acquaintances?” Chrysalis asked.

“More like victims,” Sunset said, and when Chrysalis raised a brow, she added, “Hey, I told you I used to be a real tyrant.”

“Right. And what about your family?”

“That situation’s…a bit more complicated.” Sunset then looked over at her siblings. “Right, Twily?”

With a smile that came with bittersweet emotions, Twilight said, “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

Seeing Chrysalis’s inquisitive expression, Sunset explained, “After I realized I had a home here, I became terrified that I’d lose it if they knew the truth about me. So, I kept hiding my past from them…even as it made things between us worse.”

Nodding, Twilight said with a sad frown, “I…said some things then that I wish I could take back. If we hadn’t gotten drawn into that maniac’s scheme for world domination, I…don’t think our relationship would have recovered.”

Sunset immediately wrapped her arms around her sister and said, “Of course it would have. I love you too much to let you go and I think even then, you did too.”

Twilight just nodded and hugged her back, while Chrysalis rubbed her chin in thought.

“So, keeping your past a secret really hurt your relationship at the time, huh?” Chrysalis sighed. “That doesn’t bode well.”

Understanding came across Sunset’s face. “You’re afraid the same thing will happen between you and your new friends?”

Chrysalis nodded. “I can already feel the gulf between us because of it.” She then looked from Sunset holding Twilight to Octavia and Spike. She thought of the triplets, training tirelessly to protect Sunset even now, and the other girls she hung out with at school.

Chrysalis was surprised when her eyes began to tear up as she said, “I’m so tired of feeling isolated. I want…I want what you have, Sunset. But I also like being ‘Chrysalis the normal highschool girl’.” Feeling completely lost, Chrysalis looked into Sunset’s teal eyes and asked, “If you were me, what would you do?”

“Honestly, Chrys? I don’t think the two have to be mutually exclusive,” Sunset said. “You can just be ‘Chrysalis the normal highschool girl’ and still have friends you’re close with.”

“Exactly,” Twilight added. “With the benefit of hindsight, I realized that I was wrong to resent Sunny for not telling us everything about her past. All things considered; she had some pretty damn good reasons not to.”

“And if I may add…” Octavia said, stepping closer. “Everyone has shit in their past they don’t like to talk about. But that’s okay! Because the people who really care about you will understand that, I think.”

With a smile, Sunset let go of Twilight to put an arm around Tavi. “When did you two get to be so wise?”

“I learned by watching you!” Twilight exclaimed melodramatically, eliciting chuckles from the other girls.

Chrysalis thought about what each of them said. Octavia was right: it wasn’t just Chrysalis who was keeping secrets from the others. Apple Bloom’s apparent history with Diamond Tiara remained a mystery to her, and Chrysalis certainly didn’t feel like she was any less close to her for it. They’d only been friends for one week, after all. There was still time to learn more about each other, and even if that wasn’t in the cards, Sunset and Twilight were right too: they could still be friends without knowing every little thing about each other.

Still…. “I think I’d like to tell them about what I really am someday,” Chrysalis said. “But not any time soon.”

“That actually sounds reasonable,” Sunset said. “Their sisters are all part of my inner circle. I suppose it was only a matter of time before they learned about all of this stuff anyway. Tell you what, let me know whenever you’re ready to tell them, and we’ll work on a strategy together, okay?”

With a smile, Chrysalis said, “Okay,” and then tentatively stepped forward to embrace her. “Thanks, Sunset. All of you.” She looked at them all with a smile. “This talk really made me feel better.”

Twilight then asked Chrysalis if she wanted to see her new telescope, and together the group of them all went out to the backyard, where they spent the remainder of the night talking and laughing as they looked up at the stars. Chrysalis couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever felt this content and, dare she say it, happy.

But all good things must come to an end, and eventually Celestia came out to tell Chrysalis it was time to go home. Somewhat disappointed, Chrysalis went with Celestia to the front door, where she said goodbye to Sunset and the others. Shining Armor and Cadance were going too, and Chrysalis saw Sable shake hands with Shining before the latter departed.

“I’ll do what I can to keep you posted on the...situation, but I can’t make any promises,” Shining said in a voice low enough Chrysalis wondered if she was even supposed to be hearing it.

“I appreciate it, Shining,” Sable replied before rejoining Chrysalis and Celestia (who was herself hugging Velvet goodbye).

“What were you talking to Shining about, Sable?” Chrysalis asked as they were getting into the car.

There was slight hesitation before Sable answered, “Nothing you need to be concerned about, Chrys.”

But whatever it was, it had Sable very concerned. Chrysalis could taste it.

Chapter 5 - Anything Can Happen on Halloween

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With a thoughtful sigh, the mulberry unicorn said, “We really are two of a kind, aren’t we? Me, the legacy of Sombra. And you, the legacy of Chrysalis. I can understand why you’d think we’re both damned.” The unicorn leaned towards her. “But here’s the thing: We don’t have to inherit their sins. We can fight fate!”

Chrysalis hadn’t been convinced. “I’ve done so much evil over so many years, killed so many innocents. I don’t think it’s possible to go all the way back to good.”

“Maybe not,” the unicorn said. “But it’s never too late to start being better.”

It had been a long time since Chrysalis had thought of Raspberry Beryl. But, as Sable drove her to Apple Bloom’s house that Monday evening after dinner, memories of their talk in the dungeons of Canterlot Castle inexplicably came to the surface. Chrysalis credited the life she led now to Celestia, and rightly so. The woman had given her the unconditional love that no one ever had in her millennium-plus of life. But Chrysalis would never have found that love in the first place if not for Raspberry Beryl.

As was the case with Octavia, Raspberry was a descendant of Sombra; one of the four Chrysalis had once sought to kill. But upon her defeat at their hands (and hooves), Chrysalis had been given mercy from Raspberry, who was greatly unlike her progenitor. She had shown Chrysalis that despite all she’d suffered and all she’d done, she still had value as an individual. That it was never too late to start being better.

All that I am now, I owe to her, Chrysalis realized, and then with a touch of sadness, thought, but I never got a chance to properly thank her.

Chrysalis felt the car come to a stop, and she realized they’d arrived at her destination. So putting the bittersweet introspection aside for now, Chrysalis straightened her costume and got out of the car.

“Thanks, Sable!” she said with a smile.

Sable didn’t return it. Ever since their evening with Sunset’s family on Friday, something had been bothering him, but he wouldn’t tell her what it was. She knew it involved her, but it wasn’t directed at her, per se. She trusted him now, but the uneasy feeling would still not go away.

“No problem,” he said, and then added, “Be careful, okay? Stay close to your friends.”

“Okay,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

Sable drove off, and Chrysalis walked toward the front door of Apple Bloom’s house, ready to see what this “Halloween” thing was all about.

That weekend, she had managed to procure a pretty decent vampire costume, even if her height required her to get one sized for adults (which meant it was a tad more risqué than was perhaps appropriate for a girl her age). Celestia and Sable didn’t complain though, so perhaps it wasn’t that bad.

Now, seeing Apple Bloom’s house, Chrysalis immediately understood what her friends meant when they said her family “goes all out” on Halloween. Their front yard was set up like a proper graveyard, with row after row of fake headstones all lined up. The upper half of a plastic skeleton lay partly buried before one of them, reaching out with (plastic) bony fingers as if clawing its way out of its grave. A cloaked grim reaper floated above, suspended from the tree on their lawn with fishing line. A great inflatable white ghost that nearly dwarfed the house’s façade gazed down at her menacingly while a flashing strobe light illuminated the scene. It was accompanied by recordings of thunder and other spooky ambiences. Chrysalis had never seen anything like it.

Stepping past the carved pumpkins with candles inside them up onto the front porch, Chrysalis spotted a large bowl of candy placed in the lap of a scarecrow stuffed with hay with another carved pumpkin for a head. Chrysalis stepped closer, sensing something unusual about the scarecrow. It seemed like just an ordinary—albeit large—dummy, but Chrysalis thought she saw something moving in the dark recesses of the pumpkin and leaned in closer….

“OOOuugh!” The scarecrow cried, reaching out to grab her.

Alarmed, Chrysalis leapt back, her changeling instincts taking over as she crouched low and hissed at the creature. She was surprised to hear a deep, lackadaisical chuckle then emerge from the scarecrow.

“Okay, okay. You’re scarier. I yield!”

Realizing that the scarecrow was not, in fact, ensorcelled with dark magic to attack her on sight, but rather just a man in a costume, Chrysalis relaxed. She suddenly found herself thankful that her own costume allowed her to play off her more feral changeling behavior as being “in character.”

“Is Apple Bloom here?” she asked.

“Eeyup, I take it you’re Chrysalis?” the baritone scarecrow asked. “She and the others are waiting for you inside.”

After thanking the scarecrow, Chrysalis entered the house to find six girls all hanging out in costume.

“Chrys! There you are!” Apple Bloom exclaimed, greeting her with a friendly smile. She appeared to be dressed as a werewolf, complete with a nose, ears and tail.

“Finally! Let’s get some trick or treating done!” Scootaloo exclaimed, wearing a hockey mask and wielding a plastic machete.

Sweetie Belle nodded earnestly. Both she and Coco Pommel wore the same soft blue blouse and even had their hair done the same, making them look almost like identical twins. Crackle was dressed in what appeared to be more traditional Chinese attire, wore fake fangs and had applied make up to give her a pale appearance. Finally, a sixth girl (at least, Chrysalis was reasonably certain she was a girl under her costume) sat silently in black robes wearing the mask of a screaming ghostly face.

“Oh yeah, Chrys this is Ribby,” Sweetie Belle said, gesturing to the masked girl in question. “Ribby, this is our new friend Chrys!”

Chrysalis gave a casual “Hey,” while the girl Ribby said something barely audible under that mask. It sounded like “Hello.”

It was around that time that an older girl with blond hair and freckles walked in. Chrysalis recognized her, despite the unsettling clown make-up she was wearing.

“Hey, Applejack!”

“Hi, Chrys!”

“How’s life treatin’ ya?”

“Alright.”

“Ready to get out there, Chrys?” Coco asked.

Glancing briefly at Applejack, a thought occurred to Chrysalis and she said, “Actually, I need to use the bathroom. You guys go ahead.”

Rolling her eyes (at least, Chrysalis assumed she was under the hockey mask), Scootaloo said, “Would it have killed you to go ahead of time?”

“Then I would have arrived slightly later,” Chrysalis pointed out. “Either way, you’d be waiting for me the same amount of time.”

Unable to think of a counter to that, Scootaloo just cried, “Damn you and your logic!” then stepped out the door with the other girls.

“Bathroom’s just down the hall. You can’t miss it,” Applejack said, indicating the direction with the point of a finger.

“Thanks, but I don’t actually need to go,” Chrysalis explained.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, sorry for lying—I know you’re not particularly a fan of that—but I just wanted to talk to you about something…you know….”

“Oh…” said Applejack, thinking she had an idea of what Chrysalis meant. “Well, shoot. What’s on your mind?”

Taking a breath, Chrysalis said, “Just last Friday, I had a talk with Sunset about this whole…‘pretending to be human’ thing.”

"Aren’t you human, though?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess. Sorry, go ahead.”

“Anyway, it was a good talk. She and the others had some good advice. I’m just curious…” Chrysalis hesitated as she tried to figure out the best way to say it. “How do you deal with it? With your family not knowing, I mean.”

“You mean not knowing that I have magic powers and hang out with a unicorn—sorry, alicorn—from another world?”

Chrysalis nodded. “Sunset said that before her own family found out what she is, it started to put a serious strain on their relationship.”

“And you want to know if it’s been the same for me and Apple Bloom?”

“Wow. You all are really good at this.”

Either shrugging or rolling her shoulder, Applejack said, “Well, when you’ve been in Sunny’s world for as long as we all have, I guess you get pretty good at figuring out what’s on others’ minds. ‘Specially when it comes to dealing with this stuff.” She then cleared her throat. “But to answer your question, it’s certainly not been easy. ‘Specially for someone like me, who values honesty so much.”

“Right.”

“Most of the time it’s not so bad. The fact that your friend comes from another dimension doesn’t really come up naturally in conversation that often. But every once in a while I’ll have to outright lie to my family for her sake.” Applejack frowned. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I resent Sunny for it or anything. But when I, for instance, had to come with her to her world for her coronation, I had to look my sister dead in the eye and tell her I was going to Klamath Falls.”

“Do you think she knew?”

“That I was lying? It’s possible.”

“Then…are things still cool between you two?”

“For now. The fact is, sibling relationships are complicated. There’s always gonna be rough patches no matter what. I think it’s the same with close friends as well.” Then with an encouraging smile, Applejack patted her arm and said, “The important thing is at the end of the day, you still love each other.”

That was more or less what Sunset, Twilight and Tavi had told her. “Thanks,” Chrysalis said. “Have you ever thought about telling them?”

Applejack rubbed her chin for a few seconds. “Maybe one day. Don’t know. I never really thought about it before. Guess I just assumed things were always going to be like this, but now that I think about it, that’s probably a silly assumption.”

“Who knows? Maybe in several years, the whole world will know about us and what we can do,” Chrysalis suggested.

“Maybe. I think I prefer only a select few knowing for now.”

“Well, when the day comes that I do want to let them in on the secret, I’ll let you know,” Chrysalis said. “Wouldn’t want to step on your toes or anything.”

“I appreciate that, Chrys,” Applejack said before going to the front door. “If there’s nothing else, you should get going. Wouldn’t want to keep your friends waiting.”

Chrysalis had done enough of that tonight already, so she thanked Applejack for the talk and made her way outside.

Driving back to Celestia’s townhouse after dropping Chrysalis off, Sable took a deep breath as he gripped the wheel tight. His mind had been on his conversation with Shining Armor on Friday for the whole weekend, and what it might mean for tonight. For a while, he’d been honestly considering prohibiting Chrysalis from going out on Halloween, knowing that she’d been looking forward to it all week. She would hate him for it, but if that was the price of her safety he could live with that.

Because what Shining Armor had told him and Troubleshoes that Friday evening down in the SIREN command bunker had him seriously worried.

When the three of them stepped out of the elevator into the cavernous bunker after dinner that evening, the triplets were already running the obstacle course, sweating out the chicken and mashed potatoes from dinner.

“To tell you the truth, I’m still not sure whether it’s even worth it for me to tell you guys this. It could turn out to be nothing,” Shining said. “But I’d rather err on the side of caution with this. Especially since both of you have a little girl you’re responsible for.”

“Is keeping us in suspense a part of your G-man training?” Troubleshoes asked, clearly trying to add some levity to the atmosphere but just as clearly getting impatient for the information.

“No, it just comes naturally,” Shining replied with the hint of a smile before getting to business. “Now, earlier last week the Bureau assisted in a human-trafficking bust down in Imperial County. Pretty standard stuff, especially for that area. The major difference with this particular trafficking ring is that A, we suspect they’re multinational; and B, the victims are young. I think the report mentioned the oldest one was sixteen.

“Now, we did manage to make a lot of arrests and saved a lot of kids. The only problem is, two of the ring leaders managed to slip away: a couple of bastards by the name of Iron Sulfide and Red Culpea. We’ve managed to track some of their movements, and by the looks of it, they fled here. To Canterlot.”

Sable and Troubleshoes exchanged another look as Shining continued, “At first, it was my belief that they have a safehouse here and that they’re laying low, but then….” Shining sighed. “But then on Sunday morning, a girl was reported missing. Last seen at the Olde Towne Shopping Center on Saturday afternoon.”

“Shit…” Sable swore, understanding now why Shining was having this conversation with them.

“Yeah, I was really hoping this girl—Twist Cane—would turn out to be just a runaway. CPD interviewed her family, and it fits the typical profile: Parents recently divorced, and the mother’s new boyfriend is a suspected abuser. But after twenty-four hours passed with no sign of her, the case was updated from runaway to possible kidnapping.”

“And you think that maybe Sulfide and Culpea aren’t just laying low, but have set up another human trafficking ring here in Canterlot?” Sable asked, thinking it was unlikely but possible. Perhaps they were already establishing a trafficking operation in Canterlot before the bust in Imperial County.

“Officially, the Bureau’s stance is that Twist’s disappearance is unrelated to Sulfide and Culpea. The police suspect Twist is with her father, who seems to have skipped town.” Shining frowned. “Me though? I have a bad feeling we’re about to see a lot more missing girls in the coming weeks. I hope I’m wrong. Because if I’m not, it may already be too late for Twist.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “And with the memory of the Dead Hand Killings so fresh on everyone’s minds, we really do not need this right now.”

“Tell me about it,” Sable said, glancing over at his master chief.

He saw Troubleshoes tense up and knew at once he was thinking about Tirespin.

“Do you want SIREN to look into this?” Sable asked. “If I talked to Sunset, I’m sure she could—”

“No. I mean no offense to Sunny or SIREN, but this is a Federal case. She’s got good intentions, but if she gets involved, she’ll just turn it into an even bigger mess.” With another sigh, Shining said, “I love Sunny dearly, but she really needs to learn to pick her battles. I hardly need to remind you of her little Europe trip, right?”

Sable shook his head; when he’d heard about it, he’d planned to give her a piece of his mind on that, but thankfully by that point everyone else had already done so.

“This crazy ‘magic’ stuff is her bailiwick and that’s what she should stick to,” Shining concluded. “She needs to leave the mundane stuff to the proper authorities.”

“All due respect, what was the point of even telling us this if we’re supposed to do nothing?” Troubleshoes asked.

“I’m not suggesting you do nothing,” Shining said, taking another look at the triplets as they ran the obstacle course. “I’m suggesting the triplets and even the ATG keep a close eye on Sunny and everyone in her circle for the next few weeks. Maybe tell them it’s a training drill for a ‘raised alert’ operational status or something, I don’t know. You’re the military experts here.”

“Right….”

“And hey, for all I know this could all be nothing. We could find Sulfide and Culpea tomorrow, and that girl Twist could turn out to be with her father over in Idaho or something. But….”

“But you’d rather err on the side of caution,” Sable said.

“Exactly,” Shining said, as he made to return to the elevator, evidently having said all he needed to.

“Hey, thanks for telling us this,” Troubleshoes said, giving Shining a grateful smile. “I’m sure you could get in a lot of trouble if your superiors found out.”

“Yeah, with a capital ‘T’. But I trust both of you to keep quiet about it,” Shining said, giving a little wink as the elevator doors closed.

Sable had to slam on the brakes a little harder than normal to stop at the red light in time, so lost he was replaying that conversation over in his mind. Sable suspected that Tirespin would be getting a much earlier curfew for the foreseeable future, and he wondered whether he should implement the same with Chrysalis. The girl had already survived sexual slavery once before, and it had cost her sanity for the next millennium. Sable couldn’t bear the thought of her going through that again.

What ultimately had changed his mind about allowing her to go through with tonight was the memory of OPERATION: LOST CHORD. He remembered the fearsome commander of the changeling army he had encountered in the underground caves of Equestria, and more recently the courageous girl who stood against her former friends in the defense of others. He was wrong: she didn’t need to be coddled. Sable pitied any trafficker or criminal dumb enough to mess with Chrysalis.

With nothing left to do in the house and eager to start going around the neighborhood, the seven girls set out, bidding farewell to the scarecrow: Apple Bloom’s older brother Big Macintosh, she explained. The “living scarecrow” bit was apparently a Halloween tradition he’d taken over from his father Appleseed after the addition of Apple Bloom’s baby brother Melrose to the family. It was a tradition that was very effective at scaring, if the startled shrieking that came from the house after they left was any indication.

Chrysalis managed to grasp the concept of Halloween pretty quickly after the first house they visited. All she and her friends needed to do was approach a house that was decorated for the occasion and proclaim “Trick or treat!” loudly. This resulted in the home’s resident (who might or might not also be in costume) depositing small handfuls of candy in their steadily growing bags. Chrysalis realized that at the rate they were going, she was going to have more candy than she’d know what to do with.

She couldn’t deny she was having fun. The costumes she and her friends wore elicited amusing responses from the adults at the doors they knocked on, which helped Chrysalis figure out what some of her friends’ costumes actually were. A number of people called Scootaloo “Splatterhouse,” and some of the older people seemed to get a kick out of Sweetie and Coco’s twins outfit (which honestly seemed the least like a proper costume to Chrysalis).

Every time they were recognized, Coco and Sweetie made sure to say, “Come play with us…” in unison, sometimes adding, “Forever and ever and ever…” which Chrysalis had to admit was actually kind of creepy. When they told her it was from a movie called The Shining, Chrysalis made sure to add it to her ever growing list of movies to watch. The only costume nobody seemed to get was Crackle’s, prompting Chrysalis to simply ask her after a while.

“I’m a jiangshi,” Crackle said as if that explained it. The blank stares from Chrysalis and her friends caused her to elaborate, “A creature from Chinese mythology. Undead, sleeps in a coffin, and roams the night sucking the life force from the living!”

“Dude, you could have just said ‘Chinese vampire’ and we would have gotten it,” Scootaloo said.

“That’s an oversimplification.”

“Yeah, which is the best way to explain things to Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom teased.

Scootaloo shot her an indignant look. “Pfft. I’ll oversimplificate your face!”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Your mom doesn’t make sense!”

“Ooh, shots fired,” Chrysalis deadpanned, and the others laughed.

Some time later, Chrysalis and her friends had been approached by a small boy who appeared no older than ten. He was a scrawny thing with brown hair and was carrying a camera around his neck.

“You guys look awesome!” he exclaimed, then asked, “Can I take your picture?”

Not seeing any reason to deny the kid, Chrysalis and her friends all struck a pose suitable to their costume and Chrysalis heard the click of the young boy’s camera.

“Thanks!” the boy exclaimed, running off to take more pictures before Chrysalis and the others had a chance to ask to see it.

All in all, Chrysalis was having a fun night with her friends. However, she’d almost completely forgotten one of them was even there until she whirled around—having gotten her candy from the latest house—and nearly bowled over the girl in the black cloak and screaming ghost mask.

“Oh shit, my bad…uh…” Chrysalis said, wracking her brain to try to remember the girl’s name. She didn’t usually have a problem remembering names, but this girl had been so quiet and meek Chrysalis had almost forgotten she was even with them until that moment. Not knowing what her face looked like under the mask certainly didn’t help. What was it…something with an R? Rrrr… Ra…Ri….

“Ribby!” Chrysalis exclaimed, suddenly remembering.

The girl in question jumped and nearly dropped her bag of candy. “Yes?” she said, her already quiet voice partially muffled by the mask.

The two of them were now lagging slightly behind the rest of the group, and Chrysalis realized this was an ideal moment to get to know the strange girl better. Throughout the night, Chrysalis noticed she seemed to be walking with a slight limp, so she asked, “Did you hurt your leg or something?”

Ribby just tensed up and said, “I-I don’t wanna talk about it.”

A sensitive subject, fair enough, Chrysalis thought, further perplexed by the strange girl. Out of all of the girls in her new group of friends, Ribby was the only one who didn’t seem to fit. Chrysalis had only really known Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo for a week; Coco Pommel and Crackle even less. But she already felt more at ease around them than this Ribby girl seemed to, and she’d known them longer than Chrysalis’ recent return to the human world.

“So, you go to school with Coco and Crackle, right?” Chrysalis asked. Ribby’s only response was a nod, so Chrysalis pressed further. “So…what do you major in?”

Ribby muttered something that was completely inaudible to Chrysalis, so she said, “Sorry, I didn’t get that.”

Ribby spoke a bit louder…but a car happened to pass by right at that moment, drowning her out.

“One more time?” Chrysalis said.

“I-I…d-don’t know,” Ribby stammered.

Chrysalis gave her a deadpan, lidded look. “You don’t know what your major is?”

“I-I mean…I….”

Chrysalis waited a few seconds, but when Ribby didn’t seem about to finish her thought, Chrysalis asked, “Well, what are your interests?”

Again, Ribby stuttered, “I-I don’t know….”

This conversation was going nowhere, and Chrysalis was starting to lose her patience. “Well what do you and the others do together?”

“I don’t know….”

Was Chrysalis talking to a person, or a skipping record?

“Well, what do you know?!” Chrysalis snapped, not even realizing that she’d raised her voice.

Under Ribby’s mask, Chrysalis could only hear sniffling, and she realized the girl was crying. Realizing she had perhaps let her frustration at the conversation get the better of her, Chrysalis took a breath and reached over to the crying girl dressed as a dark ghost.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” But when Chrysalis touched Ribby’s shoulder, the girl jumped and recoiled.

All at once, it dawned on Chrysalis exactly what was going on, and how badly she’d just fucked up.

“It’s okay, don’t w-worry about it,” Ribby said, increasing her walking pace so she was now limping beside Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, leaving Chrysalis at the back of the pack.

Chrysalis knew exactly why Ribby had recoiled from her touch: it was the same reaction she herself had to physical contact even from those she loved and trusted. She could taste the bitter pain flowing from Ribby’s very being, but she had blocked it out because it tasted so very much like her own.

Good job, Queen Asshole. The one person in your group of friends who might actually understand what you’ve been through, and you pushed her away.

When they got to the next house, Sweetie Belle leaned towards her and whispered, “Did something happen between you and Ribby?”

Too ashamed to look at her, Chrysalis said, “You could say that. Is she okay?”

Sweetie paused before answering, “As good as she ever is.”

“Can you tell her I understand how she feels?” Chrysalis asked. “I don’t think she really wants to talk to me right now.”

“Of course,” Sweetie said. “For the record, I don’t think she holds it against you. But you need to understand: Ribby…she’s suffered a lot. It’s not my place to say what exactly happened, but please keep that in mind, okay?”

Chrysalis frowned. “Don’t worry, I have a pretty good idea what she’s been through.”

“Really? How…?”

“Let’s just say it takes one to know one.”

As the night progressed and their bags grew heavier, Chrysalis began to get an uneasy feeling. Back in Equestria, the hive mind had given her a sort of sixth sense. She always seemed to just know when danger was somewhere close. Looking around, she saw nothing but other trick or treaters, most of them families with very small children. There was certainly no danger here in this quiet suburb, so Chrysalis wrote it off as nothing more than a phantom sensation: a memory of a warning from the hive mind.

But when they got to the next house, Chrysalis was confronted with the possibility that perhaps that part of her that intuitively sensed danger was still present.

“Your group is certainly bigger than normal this year,” said the old lady at the door. It would appear that she was a long-time neighbor and friend of Apple Bloom’s family, because she spoke to Apple Bloom with familiarity.

“Yeah, I made a lot more friends this year!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“I see, and may I say your costumes all look great!” The woman said, depositing some candy into each of their bags with a smile.

“Thanks, Mrs. Butternut!”

“Though, aren’t you girls starting to get a little old for trick or treating?”

“Uh….”

The woman—Mrs. Butternut—then smiled, “I’m only teasing. Besides, at least you’re all still keeping with the spirit of the holiday.” She frowned and looked at something out in the street past them. “Not like those older boys up the street there, who had the audacity to show up at my doorstep in nothing but their normal clothes asking for candy. ‘We’re dressed as teenagers,’ they said, like it was supposed to be clever!”

Chrysalis followed Mrs. Butternut’s gaze as she ranted, more out of idle curiosity than anything, and that was when she started to wonder whether her danger sense was still intact after all. It was dark, and the four boys were far enough away that she couldn’t make out any details, but right away she noticed that one of them appeared to have their arm in a sling…and Chrysalis was pretty sure she was the one who put it there. Sure enough, a bit of light from a nearby street lamp illuminated something shiny around the boy’s neck, and Chrysalis was fairly sure it was a dog collar.

The group of them thanked Mrs. Butternut and started walking towards the next house. After spending some time mulling over whether to say something, Chrysalis leaned over to Sweetie and whispered, “Don’t look now, but I think I just spotted our old friend from the Olde Towne parking lot.”

“Who, Rover?” Sweetie started to look over her shoulder before apparently remembering to not look. “Do you think he’s looking for payback?”

Chrysalis pretended to check herself as if she’d dropped something important then turned around, taking another good look at Rover and his friends. “Looks to me like he and his buddies just want to harass people for free candy. I don’t think he’ll bother us. Not if he remembers the beatdown I gave him last time.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Sweetie said, taking a relieved breath. “Besides, there’s a lot more of us together now.”

“Hey, you guys wanna go check out Spooky House?” Scootaloo asked, further ahead of the pack and having heard none of the previous conversation.

“What the heck is Spooky House?” Coco asked.

“It’s a really old house just one street over,” Apple Bloom explained. “Been abandoned pretty much as long as I’ve been alive.”

“Yeah, it’s old and creepy and awesome!” Scootaloo exclaimed. “C’mon, we’ll show you!”

Just like that, Scootaloo was ahead of the pack again, and the rest of the girls saw no other choice but to follow her.

Most of the houses on this street were dark—it was starting to get late, and it would appear that many of the residents here were no longer giving out candy. The houses only lined one side of the street. The other side consisted entirely of a small forest of trees with a number of paths running through them. A sign read, “Owl Park.”

Chrysalis suspected she knew which of the houses was “Spooky House.” While the other houses on the street were dark, but very clearly still lived in (she could spot the flickering light of a TV set in a few of them), one house was dark and dead. The old stone walls, which looked to have been built in a different century, were completely overgrown with dried, dead vines. The windows were dark and dusty, the wooden porch was rotted away, and the roof appeared ready to collapse at a moment’s notice. A mud brown panel van sat in the driveway, looking as dead and forgotten as the house itself.

There was something else strange about the house that Chrysalis couldn’t quite describe. If her “danger-sense” had been acting up before, now it was practically going into overdrive. She took a quick look at her surroundings. There was no sign of Rover and his friends anywhere on the street, but their absence was a cold comfort. Chrysalis couldn’t shake the feeling like she was being watched.

“So, this is Spooky House?” Crackle asked.

“Sure lives up to its name,” Coco said.

“There’s something in there…” Chrysalis said at barely a whisper.

“Yeah, racoons probably,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Quit trying to scare us, Chrys,” Apple Bloom said.

“I’m being serious. I don’t know. I can’t explain it, but there’s definitely something in there….”

“Hey girls!” exclaimed a brand new voice right next to the group.

Suddenly all of her friends were shrieking, and Chrysalis turned to see a familiar pair of girls their age standing right beside them dressed as witches.

“Hey Toola, Creams,” Chrysalis said, barely flinching. She acknowledged her two classmates with a nod.

“You scared the absolute crap out of us!” Crackle exclaimed.

“Sorry,” Coconut Cream said.

“Your reactions were pretty funny though,” Toola Roola said with a giggle. “Except for yours Chrys. You just looked bored.”

“It takes more than that to frighten me!”

“HOLY SHIT!” Scootaloo exclaimed, incidentally causing Chrysalis to jump in place. “Did you see that?!”

“See what?” Sweetie Belle asked impatiently.

Scootaloo pointed at Spooky House, and Chrysalis noticed her hand trembling a bit. “There was someone in the second floor window!”

That feeling of danger—of being watched—suddenly came back to Chrysalis and she unconsciously took a step behind the rest of the group. “R-really?”

“Scoots, I swear to God this isn’t funny,” Apple Bloom said.

“Yeah, that’s cuz I’m being serious,” Scootaloo said, pointing again at the dark, lifeless window on the second floor of the dilapidated old house. “They were standing right there, looking down at us!”

“You’re so full of shit.”

“Don’t believe me? C’mon.” Scootaloo then started walking up towards Spooky House, prompting the eight other girls present to start shouting a chorus of “Hey,” “Wait,” and “Scootaloo, what are you doing?”

“C’mon, let’s take a look!” Scootaloo exclaimed. “If you really think I’m lying, then there’s nothing to be afraid of!”

Another chorus of “No,” “Stop, Scoots!” and a single “We’re trespassing!” followed, but so did the entire group of gathered girls. Not wanting to be left behind, Chrysalis followed them. The rusted metal gate of the property opened with a loud creak. The brown, overgrown weeds and other plants brushed against their legs as they walked up the path, almost like spindly fingers grasping for them.

The girls’ bickering had grown completely silent by the time they reached the porch steps, which creaked as Scootaloo led the way up. The other eight girls hesitated at the foot of the steps, not quite courageous enough to follow. At least, at first. After another moment of pause, Toola Roola lightly bounded up the steps, two at a time, and Coconut Cream followed. Then to Chrysalis’s surprise, Ribby quietly went after them.

Well, if that meek girl is brave enough to face whatever’s in Spooky House, I certainly am! Chrysalis thought, before ascending the porch steps after her.

The five girls all peered through the window on the front door, the shorter Scootaloo and Toola Roola at the front of the pack on their tippy toes. Coconut Cream tried to shove for more space while Ribby clung tightly to Scootaloo as she peered over her shoulder. Being a good head taller than all of them, Chrysalis had an easier time looking.

“What do you see?” Apple Bloom whispered, she and the rest of the girls refusing to get any closer and looking ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.

There was a fair amount of dust on the inside of the window, and the inside of the aptly named house itself was very dark, but Chrysalis could make out a few things. A dusty hallway stretched out in front of them, leading to a flight of stairs at the end. An old cabinet sat laced with cobwebs against one of the walls, and some of the floorboards looked like they’d been split open. A couple of doors that were partially ajar lined the hallway, and Chrysalis could see another one under the stairs that was firmly closed. A line of disturbed dust traced the opening radius of that one. Had it been used recently?

Their view of the hallway was suddenly obstructed by a pale bearded face, and suddenly Scootaloo and the others were screaming. Startled more by her friends’ screams than the face (though that had been pretty startling as well), Chrysalis let out a startled war cry of her own (it didn’t count as a scream, Chrysalis decided). She then turned and started booking it the other way, and the other girls who were peering into the house with her were right on her heels. Apple Bloom and the others still on the path couldn’t have been able to see what they saw, but their frightened screaming caused a chain reaction of noise, resulting in all nine girls in the group to scatter in the night like roaches in the light.

Operating purely on changeling instinct, Chrysalis sought out the cover of darkness, and the only place out of the street lights was Owl Park across the street. Chrysalis ran straight into the trees, her heart racing, and the sound of more shrieking behind her indicated that at least some of the other girls had followed her. So Chrysalis ran blindly into the dark, tripping and stumbling over branches and stones. All around her were glowing eyes in the trees, and Chrysalis let out another “war cry”, imagining more ghostly faces coming out of the darkness.

So, she kept running until at last, she emerged on the other side, where the park came out onto a wide open field with a playground and benches next to another street. That was when Chrysalis finally allowed herself to stop and catch her breath. Scootaloo nearly bumped into her stumbling out of the wooded path, and right behind her was Ribby. The three girls stood just at the threshold of the wooded section of the park, breathing heavily.

“Wha…what the hell was that?” Scootaloo asked after a minute or two.

Ribby was trembling considerably, and Scootaloo put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Chrysalis, having had enough time for the adrenaline to wear off and think logically about the situation, said, “If I had to guess…probably a squatter.”

Scootaloo looked from Ribby to Chrysalis. “Wait, are you telling me that wasn’t a ghost, and we were all scared shitless by a…?”

“By a homeless man,” Chrysalis said with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Who was probably just as startled by us as we were by him!”

Chrysalis’s chuckle turned to full-blown laughter, and after a moment Scootaloo couldn’t help but start laughing too. Even Ribby, still behind her mask, shook with mirth. The three of them laughed for several moments, and then several moments more when Scootaloo suggested that the homeless man might have been tripping on drugs on top of everything.

“So, did you see where the others went?” Chrysalis asked when their laughter subsided.

“I dunno. Everywhere. I was just following you.”

Looking over at the nearby street, Chrysalis started figuring out which way to go to try to meet up with them. “C’mon, let’s start heading this way,” she said, taking a step towards the street.

“Wait!” Ribby’s shrill voice suddenly called out, and Chrysalis looked back at the girl as she frantically searched herself. “Oh no. No no no no no! It’s gone!”

“What is it, Ribby?” Scootaloo asked.

“My pendant! The one my Mom gave me for my birthday last year. I-I must have dropped it while we were running away!” Ribby exclaimed, looking back into the dark woods from whence they came.

“Oh. Shit….”

“Please, we have to get it back!” Ribby pleaded, her voice starting to hitch. “I-it was the last gift my Mom got for me before….” She trailed off, whatever she was about to say next cut off by a whimper.

Taking one look at the open maw of trees, Scootaloo said, “I’m not going back in there!”

At that, Ribby’s whimper became a sob, and Chrysalis realized what she needed to do. “I’ll get it. You two wait here.”

Taking a deep breath, Chrysalis took a step back into the darkness of the trees.

“I’ll let the others know where we are,” Scootaloo said, taking out her phone.

Acknowledging her with a nod, Chrysalis walked into the trees until Scootaloo and Ribby disappeared from sight.

Now that she wasn’t operating on pure adrenaline, Chrysalis realized that the dark wood within the park was not actually that scary. She could see a lot better now with the moon—covered by clouds mere minutes ago—now shining its light through the branches above. Still, she wouldn’t find Ribby’s pendant by moonlight alone, so she brought out her phone and turned on the flashlight function. Her phone’s light reflected off of the eyes in the trees, but with a clear mind, Chrysalis could see they were nothing more than the park’s namesake owls.

For a few minutes, Chrysalis retraced their steps, scanning the ground with her phone light. The tracks they left in their panicked sprint were unmistakable. There was very little chance of missing Ribby’s pendant. Sure enough, after another minute or two of searching, Chrysalis’s light glinted off of something shiny. Rushing forward, Chrysalis picked up the item, wiping off some of the dirt with the flat of her wrist. She was holding a pendant in the shape of a frog seen from above. Turning it over to look at the back, a message was inscribed To R.B. With Love, Mom. Chrysalis sighed with relief.

“OH CHRYSIE! CHRYSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!” A deep boy’s voice called out from the darkness somewhere ahead of her.

Chrysalis recognized the voice instantly as Rover.

“WE SAW YOU RUN IN HERE, CHRYSIE!” An unfamiliar boy’s voice—one of Rover’s friends, most likely—called out.

“COME ON OUT!” A third voice. “WE JUST WANNA HAVE A FEW WORDS!”

“Shit!” Chrysalis swore, quickly diving to the side of the path and hiding behind a tree, making sure to put out her phone light.

She had handily beaten Rover in a one-on-one fight. Against a group of his friends all ganging up on her, Chrysalis wasn’t so sure she could win. Not good.

She heard Rover call out for her again. They sounded close; close enough that they would probably hear her if she tried to take off. They would run after her, and where would she go? Back to Scootaloo and Ribby? Scootaloo could probably handle herself in a fight, but Ribby? The girl would probably faint if one of them so much as looked at her aggressively. For Ribby’s sake, running was out of the question. She could try to hide and hope that they’d go past her. Then again, even if they didn’t see her, they’d just end up coming out the other side of the woods where Scootaloo and Ribby were waiting for her.

Chrysalis could hear the rustling of leaves and the cracking of twigs. They were getting closer. Think, think, think!

Then Chrysalis got an idea.

Grunting, Rover trudged along the path of the wooded park, squinting to see in the darkness. His friends were spread out in the trees on either side of the path, casting a wide net in case the bitch was trying to hide.

Technically, he was only supposed to watch Chrysalis and see if he could glean anything about her. Those had been Diamond Tiara’s instructions, anyway. She was a cute piece of ass, especially for a freshman, but Rover was starting to wonder whether she was worth it. He certainly had other things he’d rather be doing on Halloween than playing spy for her. Flash Sentry was throwing a party at his place, and Rover had wanted to crash it and see what he could steal. At least his friends had the forethought to bring some beers to drink while they were at it.

Still, the thought of getting a chance for some payback had ultimately proved too enticing to pass up. Rover didn’t think Diamond would be too upset if he and his friends extracted some revenge on that disloyal punk. His friends still didn’t believe that he got his ass handed to him by a thirteen-year-old girl, so Rover hoped she’d at least put up a decent fight.

Rover had tried his best to keep an eye on Chrysalis throughout the night in spite of his friends’ constant efforts to grift some candy from the residents of this neighborhood. Thanks to their shenanigans, Rover did lose sight of her and her group of friends for a bit. Then he heard a chorus of screaming girls and managed to catch a glimpse of her running into the nearby park followed by only a couple of her friends. He wasn’t about to let an opportunity like that go to waste and gathered his friends as quickly as he could (who were trying to make off with more candy intended for little kids in costumes).

“C’MON CHRYSSIE, COME OUT AND TAKE WHAT YOU’RE OWED!” he called out again.

He’d seen the glow of a flashlight—likely from a cellphone—illuminating the trees in the distance earlier. She was close, Rover could feel it.

A loud lupine howl suddenly echoed through the trees, sending a cold shiver up his spine.

“Christ! What the hell was that?!” exclaimed Fido, a boy who in spite of his impressive size, was a complete wuss: immediately jumping back onto the path and getting next to Rover.

“Probably just a coyote or something,” Rover said, masking the fear running through him. Whatever it was, it sounded close.

Joining them back on the path, his other friend Spot—the smallest and nimblest of the three of them—looked at him with wide eyes. “That sounded like a fuckin’ wolf to me, man!”

“There aren’t any wolves in Canterlot!”

Whatever Spot was about to say in reply was interrupted by the sound of a deep, resonant canine growl. Just ahead of them, the bushes rustled and a pair of green eyes reflecting the moonlight appeared. The huge shadow they were attached to then emerged from the bushes, and Rover and his friends stood frozen in place as they came face to face with the biggest wolf any of them had ever seen.

Standing at nearly the same height as Rover himself, the huge lupine snarled, baring its massive fangs. In the light of the moon, Rover could swear he saw something red along its mouth. Blood? Then the massive wolf pushed off its front legs and began to stand. Now towering above the three of them on two legs, the lupine creature opened its front paws into a set of sharp claws, then reared back and bellowed out an ethereal howl at the moon…which Rover was fairly certain was full.

He then looked on either side of himself and noticed that both of his friends were already long gone. The monster wolf then lunged forward, letting out a deafening roar spraying blood and spittle. Rover took off running as fast as he could, whimpering, crying and praying to whatever god will listen to protect him from the monster.

Rather than go trick or treating that Halloween, Featherweight had decided to take his new camera for a little night shoot. He had gotten it for his birthday just that weekend, and just couldn’t get enough of it! He’d spent the early half of the evening taking pictures of the various trick-or-treaters in their costumes (with their permission of course). When he got bored of that, he decided to go into the park, hoping to test out the night vision setting on his camera by getting some shots of the owls that lived there.

His little photography session was then broken up by the high-pitched screaming of teenage girls, and Featherweight saw a group of three of them run past on the adjacent path like Hell itself was on their heels. Thinking they were nothing more than victims of a Halloween prank, he quickly forgot about it and continued snapping photos. Several minutes later, he heard older boys’ voices shouting. It sounded like they were looking for somebody named “Chryssie.” Featherweight paid them no mind as he had with the girls before (perhaps “Chryssie” was one of them).

Then he heard the howl.

The sound was otherworldly and shook him to the core, and he heard the boys who had been shouting talking nervously amongst themselves. So, pressing himself tightly behind a tree, Featherweight peered out to the path, where three boys were huddled together. Standing in front of them was something Featherweight had only ever seen in movies. A great wolf, as big as a person, stood on the path opposite the boys, snarling at them. Featherweight’s heart raced in his chest and his hands were trembling, but he was destined to be a great photographer one day!

So, knowing that moments like this one were just the kind he needed to capture on film (or in this case, on his memory card), he raised his camera, double-checking that the night vision was still on. He then set the camera to video, deciding that simple pictures wouldn’t do to capture this moment. Right as he did, the werewolf (that had to be what it was, there was no other explanation!) reared up on its hind legs and howled at the full moon through the trees, and two of the boys cowering before it took off running the other way. Then the werewolf let out a terrifying roar and the one boy who remained fled right after them.

Now alone in the woods with the apparent lycan, Featherweight kept filming. Rather than give chase to the fleeing boys, the werewolf merely watched them run. Then when they were out of sight, it looked around, seemingly checking its surroundings, and Featherweight was sure for a moment that it would see him. Instead, the great beast turned and started casually walking the other way. Then something happened that defied anything Featherweight expected.

The giant wolf was suddenly washed over in green flames as its form started to shift. In just a short moment, where once there was a terrifying werewolf now stood a young teenage girl with blond hair streaked with teal. Apart from the vampire costume she wore, she looked like just an ordinary girl. In fact, Featherweight thought that maybe he’d seen her earlier that night. Briefly checking something in her hand, the girl continued down the path out of sight.

It took a few moments of just sitting there, trembling with awe and fear in equal parts, that Featherweight had the presence of mind to stop recording. He then went to play it back but reconsidered. The hoot of one of the owls he had been taking photos of mere minutes ago sent another set of chills through his body, and Featherweight decided that he wanted to go home right now.

Even still, as frightened as he was, Featherweight was also giddy. He’d probably never film anything that cool for as long as he lived!

When Chrysalis exited the thick wooded section of the park, Scootaloo and Ribby weren’t the only ones waiting for her. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and the rest of the girls were all loitering about. They immediately went to her when they saw her emerge.

“You okay?” Sweetie Belle asked. “I thought I heard something howling in there!”

“Yeah, I heard it too. Probably just a coyote or something,” Chrysalis said with as much nonchalance as she could muster. “I did, however, almost run into Rover and his friends, but whatever was howling scared them off.”

She then spotted Ribby, who was sitting on a nearby park bench with both hands on the leg she’d been limping on throughout the night. Come to think of it, Chrysalis was surprised the girl had managed to keep up with her and Scootaloo when they were running earlier. Chalking it up to the power of adrenaline, Chrysalis approached Ribby and presented the pendant. The girl had taken her ghost face mask off at some point while Chrysalis had been gone, and her raspberry eyes lit up at the sight of her treasured possession.

“Thank you so much, Chrysalis!” the girl exclaimed, smiling widely as her eyes brimmed with tears.

Something about those raspberry eyes struck a chord of familiarity with Chrysalis, but she couldn’t quite place her finger on where she would have seen eyes like that before. Come to think of it, even her smile reminded Chrysalis of somebody she knew.

“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I think I’ve had enough excitement for one night,” Coco said.

“Yeah, we should get back,” Crackle said, checking her phone. “It’s getting pretty late.”

“Yeah, I’m ready to dig into our haul!” Scootaloo exclaimed.

“Wanna head back to my place?” Apple Bloom asked. The answer was a unanimous yes. At least, almost unanimous.

“I’m just gonna stop by Toola’s house to see if she’s there,” Coconut Cream said. “Lost track of her when we all ran away from Spooky House.”

“Is she not answering her phone?” Chrysalis asked.

Coconut shook her head. “No, but she’s pretty bad about answering her phone to begin with.”

“Makes sense.”

“It was fun hanging out with you girls, though.” Coconut smiled. “We should do it more often!”

Saying goodbye to Coconut Cream, Chrysalis and the rest of the girls all started walking in the direction of Apple Bloom’s place, chatting and laughing about the night’s events. As they did, Apple Bloom made her way next to Chrysalis.

“Hey, you said you ran into that guy Rover, right?” Apple Bloom asked, and Chrysalis nodded.

“Yeah. I thought he was just in the neighborhood by coincidence at first, but he definitely came here tonight to mess with me.”

Apple Bloom just glared ahead. “Diamond Tiara sent him.”

It was a pretty good guess, but Apple Bloom wasn’t guessing. Chrysalis could hear the certainty in her voice. “What makes you so sure?” she asked.

“This tradition of all my friends coming to my house and trick or treating in my neighborhood...it didn’t start when I met Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.” Apple Bloom sighed, and Chrysalis understood what she meant. “It wouldn’t occur to Rover and his friends to look for you in this neighborhood tonight. But it would occur to Diamond.”

Chrysalis nodded and grunted an acknowledgement. Once again she found herself curious about the history between her current friend and her former one, but decided not to press it this time.

“She really has it out for you, doesn’t she?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Yeah, but it’s fine. I’ve dealt with worse than her.”

The two walked in silence for a bit, broken up by Scootaloo laughing at something Sweetie Belle said ahead of them.

“Hey Chrys, I’m sorry if I pressed you too hard for details about yourself before,” Apple Bloom said.

“You don’t have to apologize for trying to get to know me, Apple Bloom,” Chrysalis said.

“Well, Sweetie told me about the little incident between you and Ribby earlier tonight, and what you said to her after.” Apple Bloom gave her a sad smile. “Guess you and Ribby have a few things in common, huh?”

Chrysalis was pretty sure she knew what Apple Bloom meant. “It’s okay, you didn’t know.”

Chrysalis thought back to what Sunset and her siblings said to her in their talk Friday evening. And the similar words she received from Applejack tonight. Chrysalis knew she didn’t have to talk about her past if she didn’t want to, but in that moment she really wanted her friend to understand.

“It’s not just that I was abused. I took that pain and used it to hurt others. To give you a frame of reference, try to imagine how Sunset Shimmer used to be, but like ten times worse,” Chrysalis explained, and Apple Bloom listened quietly. “The reason I was so uncomfortable around Coco on Friday is because she just so happens to look just like one of the people I hurt the most. Honestly, it’s so uncanny it still kinda makes me uncomfortable.”

“I understand.”

Chrysalis looked ahead, where Coco Pommel walked beside Sweetie Belle, laughing in unison as if they really were the twins they were dressed as. “It’s not Coco’s fault. She’s a nice girl. It’s just something I’m going to have to get used to.”

Apple Bloom touched her shoulder and gave it a little pat. Then Scootaloo wandered over to brag about getting a full-sized candy bar.

A good several minutes later, they all arrived back at Apple Bloom’s house, which was a great deal quieter and less festive now that the evening was coming to an end. The spooky ambience and strobe lights had been turned off, the candles within the jack ‘o lanterns had all been put out, and Apple Bloom’s older brother had retired the living scarecrow for the night.

The seven girls all sat around the Apple family’s living room as they all went through their haul from the evening. Candy was enjoyed, compared and traded as the group of them all chatted about nothing in particular. Soon, it came time for the girls to start heading home; it was a school night, after all. Crackle was the first to go, followed shortly by Sweetie Belle. Coco left next, and Chrysalis tried to give the girl her best smile, just to make sure she knew they were cool. After that, Scootaloo went to catch the bus and only Ribby and herself were left. Chrysalis would have been fine taking the bus home, but Sable had been adamant about picking her up himself. So, she had messaged him as everyone had first started leaving that she was ready.

Chrysalis was chatting with Apple Bloom about an assignment for school that was due later that week when an older woman Chrysalis assumed was her mother came in requesting her assistance cleaning up some of the Halloween stuff.

“Are you waiting for your parents to pick you up?” the woman then asked, looking at Chrysalis.

“My d…uh, Sable’s on his way,” Chrysalis said, deciding she would not dwell on her near slip of the tongue at that moment.

Apple Bloom’s mom then looked at Ribby, and what she said nearly caused Chrysalis to do a double take.

“Raspberry honey, is Phoenix coming to get you?”

Whatever reply the girl in question gave, Chrysalis didn’t hear it, and it wasn’t because of the girl’s usual mumbled answer. Chrysalis had assumed that Ribby was the girl’s name, and not even seeing the initials R.B on her pendant clued Chrysalis in that it was a nickname. That certainly explained “Ribby’s” uncanny familiarity to Chrysalis, but she couldn’t believe it took her until now to realize it.

Looking again at this Raspberry’s hunched posture and meek face, Chrysalis thought, Of course I didn’t realize it. The girl in front of her was nothing like the Raspberry Beryl that she had known in Equestria. The unicorn Raspberry was strong, confident, and uncompromising in her beliefs. The girl in front of her was none of those things. While both versions of Raspberry Beryl had come face to face with darkness in their past, the Equestrian Raspberry had managed to come out the other side of that darkness. The Raspberry in front of her now was still lost in it.

It was around that time Chrysalis realized that Raspberry was staring at her. The girl blinked. “Sorry,” she said.

“It’s alright,” Chrysalis said. The way Raspberry kept glancing at her, it was clear there was something she wanted to say, so Chrysalis tried to help her along by asking, “What’s on your mind?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just…I think you’re amazing.”

Chrysalis hadn’t expected her to say that. “I’m nothing special,” she said with a careless shrug.

“I think you are. Sweetie told me what you did for her a week ago at the shopping center,” Raspberry said, looking down at the pendant in her hand. The chain that made up the necklace was broken, which likely happened when they were running through the woods in the park. Raspberry would probably have to get a new chain before she could wear it properly again. “Plus, you found this. Even though you had no idea how important it is to me.”

“I could tell it’s important. Your mom’s gone now, right?” Chrysalis asked, and Raspberry confirmed it with a nod. Chrysalis almost didn’t ask what she did next—she was pretty sure she knew the answer, and didn’t want to bring up traumatic memories for Raspberry. But she realized it needed to be addressed. “And your father…he hurt you, didn’t he?”

Raspberry only looked at the floor, how lost she was plain on her face. “In ways you can’t imagine.”

“I can,” Chrysalis said, and Raspberry’s eyes lifted from the floor and rested back on her. “That’s kind of why I wanted to help you. Because…I’ve been there. I know what it’s like.”

Raspberry and Chrysalis both looked at each other, each one finally understanding the full measure of the other.

“I just wish…” Raspberry said with a sad, broken smile. “I wish I was even half as strong as you are.”

Chrysalis thought of the Raspberry Beryl in Equestria who had helped her when she was at her lowest point. Even though she had been an enemy, and it would have been well within her right to let her die or rot in prison, Raspberry had given her the help she needed. With that in mind, Chrysalis looked at her counterpart and realized, I can do the same for her.

"Honestly, I think you’re a lot stronger than me, Razz,” Chrysalis said, not even noticing her slip of the tongue.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve both suffered the same—or similar enough. But in spite of that, you never became a monster like I did. Never lashed out at the world and hurt innocent people like I did. I can tell.”

Raspberry looked down at her hands and said, “My hands aren’t exactly clean, though.”

Chrysalis reached over and put her hand on Raspberry’s. “That may be. But it took me a very long time to get to where I am now, and you’re practically already there.”

Looking down again, Raspberry said, “I don’t think I am. You’re actually confident. You’re not afraid of your own shadow, or constantly feeling like you’re worthless.” Then with a hopeless sigh, Raspberry said, “I’m never going to be like I was before.”

“Maybe not,” Chrysalis said. “But somebody once told me that it’s never too late to start being better. That’s all we can really do. Even I’m not totally perfect. Some days you’re taking one step forward and two steps back. But as long as you never stop trying to be better, eventually you will be. Even if you’re not the same person you were before, you’ll still be someone…good, I dunno. I’m kinda rambling now, but you get what I mean, right?”

With a genuinely hopeful smile, Raspberry looked at Chrysalis and said, “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Then to Chrysalis’s surprise, the girl wrapped her arms around her and pulled her into a hug. “I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear that. Thank you, Chrys.”

Heading back from Toola Roola’s house, Coconut Cream’s nerves were fraught with worry. She had been certain that her friend had just decided to go straight home after the fright they all had at Spooky House. Still, considering Toola wasn’t answering her phone or replying to texts, Coconut felt like it was her responsibility to check on her just to make sure she got home safe. But the only person who had been home was Toola’s older brother and some girl he was with.

So Coconut Cream just started walking home, her stomach a cold pit of worry. Did something happen to her friend? Had that bearded ghost in Spooky House gotten her? She felt ridiculous for even thinking it, but the thought wouldn’t leave her mind. Taking out her phone, Coconut tried calling her again.

As expected, the phone rang, but no one answered. Less expected, she heard the faint sound of Hotline Bling playing in the distance, cutting through the dead silence of the night. She almost dismissed it as someone playing it in their car a few blocks away when she remembered that Toola had the song as her ringtone. Her ringtone that she always kept on max volume.

The song was coming from the street she had just passed, so doubling back, Coconut followed Hotline Bling down the street. A few seconds later, the song stopped playing, and for a moment Coconut thought she’d been hearing things. She then put her phone back to her ear and realized her call had once again gone to Toola’s voicemail. So hitting redial, Coconut listened and once again heard the first distant notes of Hotline Bling.

Now certain that she was on Toola’s trail, Coconut started a light jog in the direction of the song. “Toola?” she called out. “Toola, you here?”

Her only answer was Drake’s siren song, and like a lost sailor Coconut continued to follow it. She had to hit redial one more time but she finally came across the closed convenience store at the corner. Hotline Bling was playing very loudly now. Coconut knew she was close.

She saw a light illuminating the inside of the dumpster in the alley behind the dark convenience store and was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Sure enough, peeking her head over the dumpster revealed that lying on top of the refuse was a phone. Coconut reached in and plucked it out of the dumpster. It was Toola Roola’s phone alright, and its screen displayed a number of missed calls from Coconut Cream.

How did this get here? She wondered. Something about the whole situation felt wrong to Coconut Cream. She couldn’t rationalize it, but she suddenly didn’t want to be out here anymore. She wanted nothing more than to be at home with her mom and dad. So, with her heart beating quickly in her chest, Coconut turned around to head back the way she came.

A mud brown panel van was sitting on the side of the road facing towards her. Was that there before? The van immediately stuck out to Coconut because she was pretty sure it was the same van she’d seen in the driveway in Spooky House. She could see the same logo of the cockroach beneath the flyswatter on the side of it.

So Coconut crossed the street as she made her way back, giving the van a wide berth. As she did, she heard the loud metallic click of the vehicle’s door opening and saw a man get out. She took a quick glance at him and realized that she was looking at the same ghostly bearded face she’d seen through the window of Spooky House. Only this was very much a man of flesh and blood, and he was walking toward her with a purpose.

Feeling more sacred than she ever had in her life, Coconut turned and ran…right into another man. She looked up to see a hateful grimace with a scar under his left eye. The man grabbed her. She tried to scream, but a hand quickly covered her mouth.

Chapter 6 - Somebody To Love

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Since ditching Diamond Tiara for Apple Bloom and her friends, Chrysalis had been looking into the after-school clubs at CHS. Naturally, the first one she signed up for was the movie club. Organized by a sophomore named Juniper Montage, it was a club that met every week on Thursday to watch and discuss movies. Chrysalis had been welcomed into their ranks with open arms, and she found herself learning a lot more about the film industry itself. The club’s members—Juniper in particular—were rife with knowledge of filmmaking trivia, and Chrysalis soaked their knowledge up like a sponge, always coming home to Sable and Celestia with something new to share.

The problem started as the club was dispersing for the day. Chrysalis was just putting her jacket on when a familiar boy’s voice greeted, “Hey, Chrys.”

Chrysalis turned and smiled when she saw the blond-haired blue-eyed boy wearing a grayish blue jacket smiling nervously at her.

“Oh, hey Star Tracker,” Chrysalis greeted.

Out of everyone in the movie club, Chrysalis liked Star Tracker the most. Admittedly, a big part of it was he was the only one in the movie club who didn’t look down their nose at her when she said she liked High School Musical. More significant though was the simple fact that he was the only other freshman in the club. Because of that, Chrysalis saw him pretty regularly in her classes as well, and ever since she joined the movie club, the two of them had been talking more and more. In just two short weeks, Chrysalis and Star Tracker had gotten to know each other pretty well.

They weren’t exactly close friends per se (Star Tracker didn’t hang out with Chrysalis or her group of friends outside of school), but they were certainly more than mere acquaintances. Chrysalis wasn’t sure how to describe how she felt around him. All she knew was that he was easy to talk to and they always seemed to make each other laugh.

“So, I take it by the sniffling and quiet sobs that you liked the movie?” Star asked with a knowing grin.

“I was not crying, thank you very much!” Chrysalis proclaimed, folding her arms and giving him an imperious glare. “I have…allergies.”

Despite her best efforts to look intimidating, Star only chuckled and said, “Yeah? What are you allergic to? Feelings?”

“Pfft. Shut up!”

That was another thing Chrysalis appreciated about Star Tracker. In spite of her being nearly a head taller than him (as she was with most of her peers) the boy wasn’t the least bit intimidated by her like many of her peers were. Of course, this had the drawback of her patented death glare being completely ineffectual against him. So, as the two of them began walking down the hall on their way out, Chrysalis opted for a change in tactics, switching from intimidation to simply changing the subject.

“You know, I just realized that was the second movie I watched this week where Pearl Street went crazy in space,” Chrysalis commented with a giggle. The film that the movie club had watched today was the 2014 film Interstellar. Sunday night Chrysalis had watched a film called The Martian with Celestia and Sable, the lead actor of which made an appearance in today’s feature. “They’ve got to stop sending that man to space!”

Star laughed. “Yeah, it never seems to go well for him.”

The two chatted lightly and easily as they always did until they reached the school’s main entrance. There, Chrysalis saw Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo waiting for her; each of them clearly having just gotten out of their own extracurricular activities. Chrysalis gave them a wave and the trio returned it.

“Well, this is me,” she said, looking over her shoulder at Star. “Unless you want to actually join us this time?”

“Thanks, but I should probably get home before my Bubi starts to worry,” Star explained, and Chrysalis nodded in understanding. But before she could start heading over to her friends, Star said, “But before I head out I…kinda wanted to ask you something.”

“Oh?” Chrysalis asked, turning back around. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Apple Bloom and the others all giving curious looks her way.

Something wasn’t right, because for the first time since Chrysalis had met him, Star suddenly looked intimidated by her. “Y-yeah. I-I just wanted to ask…are you doing anything tomorrow evening?”

Chrysalis tapped her chin and said, “Hmm…my guardians are having family over for dinner, and I was kinda looking forward to seeing them.”

“Okay, then how about Saturday?”

“My Saturday’s wide open.”

Star smiled widely, his sudden unexpected anxiousness slowly dissipating. “Well, on the topic of space movies, you remember the one I told you about last week?”

“Yeah. Arrival I think it was called?” Chrysalis said. Star had shown her the trailer for it on YouTube, and Chrysalis thought it looked pretty good.

“That’s the one. It comes out tomorrow,” Star said, scratching his blond hair nervously. “I was thinking I’d go see it. And…wanted to know if you’d like to go with me.”

Chrysalis’s face lit up. Ever since she first started watching movies with Celestia and Sable she’d always wanted to see one in a theater. Unfortunately, her first theater experience was soured a bit by the fact that she’d just found out that the friends she’d gone with were horrible people (also the movie itself wasn’t very good). The thought of getting another chance at a proper theater experience made Chrysalis happier than she honestly expected.

“Yes! I’d love to go with you!” Chrysalis exclaimed.

With a relieved smile, Star said, “Great! It’s a date then!”

So, bidding her farewell, Star went on his way while a single thought went through Chrysalis’s mind. He didn’t mean…? Nah. Deciding not to give it another thought, Chrysalis went over to where her friends were waiting.

“Hey Chrys,” Apple Bloom greeted.

“Hey Bloomie. How was Dance?”

“Pretty good,” Apple Bloom said with a beaming smile. “Tender Taps and I are really getting our routine down.”

“So have you asked him out yet?” Scootaloo asked.

“N-no! It’s not like that,” Apple Bloom said, though the hint of red in her cheeks betrayed her and made Chrysalis chuckle.

“Speaking of asking out, what’s the deal between you and Star, Chrys?” Sweetie Belle asked, giving Chrysalis a little nudge.

“Nothing,” Chrysalis insisted. “He merely asked if I wanted to see a movie with him on Saturday.”

“So, he did ask you out, then?”

“No! I mean, he did ask me out, but it’s not a date.”

“Did he say it’s not a date?” Scootaloo asked.

Chrysalis stammered a bit. “Well…no, but….”

“What were his exact words?”

There was a pause as Chrysalis tried to remember what Star said exactly. It was hard to remember, already the conversation was far from Chrysalis’s mind. So, Chrysalis repeated the only words she could remember.

“It’s a date.”

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo all looked at her with deadpan expressions.

“Fuck. It is a date,” Chrysalis moaned.

With a frown, Apple Bloom said, “You don’t sound so happy about it.”

“Yeah, I guess not.”

With that, the group silently and unanimously decided to stop hanging around the school entrance and started walking towards the street.

“Well, why not?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Yeah, Star’s pretty cute, and you two seem to get along well,” Scootaloo said. “I thought you’d be stoked.”

“I don’t know, I guess I…I’m just not ready for a relationship yet,” Chrysalis said.

“You know, I thought the same thing when Button first asked me to that movie a few weeks back,” Sweetie said. “I even told him I just wanted to go as friends at first. But then we started spending more time together and….” With a cute nervous smile, Sweetie looked away and started idly fidgeting with her bracelet. “I dunno, I kinda like him.”

Chrysalis would be lying if she said she didn’t find Star cute. She certainly did enjoy his company.

“Look, what I’m trying to say is, you should give him an honest chance,” Sweetie Belle said, making eye contact again now that the subject wasn’t on the desires of her own heart. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Uh, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ How about getting drugged and taken advantage of?” Scootaloo said. “Or did you forget what you told us nearly happened to your sister last year?”

“Wait, what nearly happened to your sister?” Chrysalis asked.

“Oh right, I forgot the Club was before your time, Chrys,” Sweetie Belle said, then explained, “At the beginning of the year, a group of boys got their hands on the mother of all date rape drugs and…had their way with a number of the girls at this school and others. They would have gotten to my sister Rarity too if Sunset hadn’t intervened.”

Chrysalis tensed up. She couldn’t help but think of the Compulsion: the mind-control drug cooked up by King Sombra’s mad scientist and tested on her. She remembered how scared and helpless she’d felt when Sombra had her on the stuff constantly, to the point she couldn’t eat, sleep or even relieve herself without being told to. It had been a feeling worse than any claustrophobia. She was made to do and endure horrible things and couldn’t even scream….

“Chrys?”

Apple Bloom’s voice snapped her back to reality, and Chrysalis blinked. Her friends had stopped walking and were all looking at her with concern clear on their faces. Chrysalis realized then that she had been gasping for breath and focused on getting herself under control with a few deep breaths.

“Sorry,” she said when her attack subsided. She tried to give her friends a reassuring smile. “I’m okay.”

Her hands were still shaking though. This she realized when Sweetie Belle took them in her own.

“It’s okay if you’re not ready for a relationship yet,” Sweetie said. “I’m sure Star will understand.”

“Either that or his whole ‘nice guy’ act is exactly that and turning him down will make him show his true colors,” Scootaloo said.

“Scoots, we can’t go through life thinking that every boy we meet is secretly a jerk who only wants to get in our pants,” Apple Bloom calmly argued, before turning to Chrysalis. “You know Star better than us. Do you think he’s really like that?” Chrysalis shook her head. “Then you probably have nothing to worry about. But it’s up to you. If you’re not ready, then that’s fine too.”

“Well, I’ve got a day to think about it,” Chrysalis said.

With that, the four of them kept walking and the topic moved on to other things. Chrysalis, however, remained silently focused on her sudden conundrum.

As far as discerning Star Tracker’s true intentions went, Chrysalis had one advantage that her friends didn’t know about. Her changeling abilities allowed her to taste exactly what Star was feeling, and she would be able to gauge his feelings for her the next time they spoke. Of course, this brought another alarming fact to the forefront of Chrysalis’s mind. Namely, that she had been completely blindsided by Star’s apparent feelings for her. How had that happened? Were her changeling senses weakening now that she’d been in the human world for so long? No, that wasn’t it. She could still taste the emotions of everyone around her fairly consistently.

And hadn’t she tasted Star Tracker’s infatuation growing day by day? Yes, now that she was thinking about it, Chrysalis supposed she knew all along how Star felt. However, she’d subconsciously chosen to pretend that she couldn’t. Why? Chrysalis didn’t know, but it only made her more conflicted.

All of these thoughts completely distracted Chrysalis from something else that had been on her mind: That she hadn’t seen Toola Roola or Coconut Cream in class for the past week and a half.

The afternoon and evening went by relatively uneventfully for Chrysalis. She didn’t have much homework that day and managed to finish all of it in time to help out with the dinner. In no time at all she was sitting at the table with Celestia and Sable enjoying a juicy steak.

“So, anything interesting happen today, Chrys?” Celestia asked.

Despite her mind being preoccupied all evening by the “something interesting” that had happened that day, Chrysalis only shrugged and said, “Not really.”

“Today you had your after-school movie club, right? How’d that go?” Sable asked.

“Pretty good. We finished watching Interstellar,” Chrysalis answered.

Although neither Celestia nor Sable seemed particularly concerned by her brief answers, Chrysalis couldn’t help but wonder whether they knew that something was on her mind. They did seem to have a sixth sense for this sort of thing, especially where Chrysalis was concerned. So, she decided to throw them a bone.

“A friend of mine invited me to see that new Arrival movie on Saturday,” she said, adding, “Should be fun.”

“Oh really? Which friend?” Celestia asked.

Chrysalis waited to finish chewing her bite of steak before answering, “Star Tracker. He’s the boy I told you about from the movie club.”

“Oh,” Celestia said casually enough. Then realization seemed to hit her. “Oooooh….”

“Stop that. Star’s just a friend.”

A slightly impish smirk appeared on Celestia’s face. “Why, whatever do you mean, Chrys?”

Her cheeks suddenly got very hot, and it wasn’t just the freshly cooked steak that made it so. “You know exactly what I mean!” Chrysalis exclaimed.

Still grinning, Celestia said, “No, I don’t think I do!” before taking another bite of the steak on her plate.

Realizing that she wasn’t going to get out of this without addressing the issue head on, Chrysalis said, “You think it’s a date, don’t you?”

“Well, is it?”

Clearing his throat, Sable finally spoke up. “How about you ease off a little, Tia? If she turns any redder, she’ll shapeshift into a tomato. Or maybe a firetruck.”

Chrysalis had a pretty good death glare waiting in the wings, but then Celestia said, “Okay fine,” and Chrysalis’s glare towards Sable became a look of gratitude.

“Teasing aside, though, if it is a date, I hope you’ll be careful,” Celestia said, the “Mom” tone starting to come through.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

“I’m serious. Statistically, more and more kids are having sex at younger ages….”

“Oh my Gooood….”

“…and I think it’s more important than ever that we educate you on the risks….

“Can we please not talk about this now?!”

“…so that you guys can practice having safe sex.”

“Mom, PLEASE! Can you at least wait until we’re finished eating?!”

Celestia and Sable exchanged a curious look all of a sudden, but before any of them could dwell on it for too long, Sable said, “Tia, Chrysalis is well over one thousand years old. She hardly needs to get ‘the Talk’ from us.”

Looking at him like he was her own personal messiah, Chrysalis said, “Thank you Sable.”

Raising her hands in defeat, Celestia said, “Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll stop. But Chrys, I want you to know that if you ever need to talk about anything—including love and dating—you can always come to me or Sable.”

“Preferably Celestia,” Sable added.

Finally getting fed up with her boyfriend, Celestia turned to him and intoned, “Is there a reason you’ve not been taking my side all evening? Because the couch is looking pretty comfortable tonight!”

It would appear that the Princess of the Sun wasn’t the only Celestia who liked using banishment as a punishment. Chrysalis was worried she was about to lose her only ally at this dinner as Sable quickly looked between her and his girlfriend. He then carefully and diplomatically said, “I’m not taking anyone’s side here. I only meant that if Chrysalis wants advice on dating, she would benefit more from your perspective than she would from mine.”

Celestia regarded Sable for a few seconds, both him and even Chrysalis waiting in bated breath for her verdict. After apparently deciding she’d made him sweat long enough, Celestia said, “I suppose you’re right.” She then turned to Chrysalis and gave her best motherly smile. “I’m always happy to talk with you about whatever’s on your mind, Chrys. So, if you ever need advice, you can come talk to me any time.”

“Thanks. I’ll get riiiiiiiiight on that,” Chrysalis drolled.

Seeing no point in continuing the discussion, Sable moved it to another topic, for which both Chrysalis and even Celestia were grateful. When dinner was finished, Chrysalis opted to return to her room rather than watch TV with Celestia and Sable. After some time idly scrolling Facebook and watching YouTube videos, Chrysalis decided to call it an early night and started getting ready for bed.

Things had changed since Chrysalis had first moved in with Celestia and Sable, and it wasn’t just that she was beginning to feel more comfortable in her new life. The dreams she was having had been changing as well. In her early days back in this world, Chrysalis used to put off going to bed as long as possible. She knew that when she laid down her head and closed her eyes, she would be back in Equestria suffering for King Sombra’s sick amusement. Or trapped within the hive mind, her own voice drowned out by thousands of others.

But ever since her first day at CHS, Chrysalis’s trauma-fueled nightmares started being broken up by a very different dream: a dream where she was not herself, but a mare named Calyx, apparently a queen of Old Unicornia. In every dream that she had as this “Queen Calyx,” Chrysalis was having a secret love affair with a stallion knight named Sunburst. There was enough courtly drama and romance to fill a novel, and had Chrysalis known the first thing about writing, she probably could have written one.

Chrysalis had no idea where these “Calyx” dreams came from; perhaps someone with a better understanding of dream theory could explain it. But Chrysalis was perfectly happy not knowing. These dreams were her little secret, and in recent days she was having them more often than nightmares. If she was being honest with herself, these dreams were the reason she was considering this date with Star Tracker at all. Because the feeling of being in love—not just feeding on it—was one she’d grown to enjoy, even if it was only a dream. Star Tracker may not have been the dashing knight that her dream paramour was, but maybe they could still have something as beautiful as Calyx had in these dreams.

But when she laid her head down to sleep this time, the dream that followed was tinged with sadness. She stood on a path just outside of the capital in the darkness of night. She was cloaked and hooded so that none would recognize her. With her was her love: Sunburst, dressed in the full barding of his station. The mood between them was solemn: something deep inside her told her this would be their last meeting.

“I wish you didn’t have to do this,” she said.

Sunburst looked at her and Chrysalis could see the sadness in his eyes, but the love and determination there shone brighter.

“You need not fear, my love,” he said softly. “I’ll only be gone for a scant few months. A year at most.” Sunburst then smiled. “Then, when I return with the legendary sword Rosegarden, the nobility will have no choice but to accept me as your husband-to-be.”

“Were you not the one who always said it mattered not what the nobles thought of us?”

Sunburst sighed and said, “Do you really want to go on like this forever, Calyx? To keep loving each other in darkness and secrecy until we’re old and crooked?”

Chrysalis thought about the life she wanted for them: to rule her ponies with Sunburst at her side. To have and raise foals who would one day succeed her. To have a family with the one she loved without shame. None of that would be possible if the nobility would not approve of the “lower class” knight that she had chosen.

“I suppose there’s no other way,” she conceded, then added, “Unless you want to elope?”

“Would you really want that?” Sunburst asked. “If leaving all of this behind would truly make you happy, just say the word. We can go tonight. Start a new life somewhere far away, where no one would know who we are.”

The offer was tempting. More tempting than Chrysalis could say. She then looked back at the walls of the capital. Her home.

“No, I can’t leave,” she said with a sigh. “I shudder to think what would become of my kingdom if the likes of Briarthorn or his ilk were to take the throne.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t be the mare I fell in love with if you wanted to just run away.” Sunburst then kissed her tenderly on the cheek, and the two of them held their gaze as more and more Chrysalis realized the moment was approaching its end.

“This is it, isn’t it?” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

Sunburst nodded. “Take care around that cur,” he said, not needing to address Lord Briarthorn by name. “You know I don’t trust that opportunistic villain.”

Chrysalis wasn’t sure he was as dangerous as all that but vowed to be cautious regardless. “Just come home safely,” she said. “I care more about you than some silly sword.”

She then pulled him into a kiss, deep, passionate and full of tears. Then they broke, and Chrysalis slowly…reluctantly let go of Sunburst. He lingered long enough to brush away her tears, and then he was off; starting his way down the long dark road. Chrysalis watched him go until she could no longer see him, then turned and hurried back to her castle. She had to make it back before sunrise.

Chrysalis awoke the following morning with tears staining her cheeks.

Friday passed relatively uneventfully, though there was one moment that stuck out to Chrysalis as…not strange exactly, but…off. She had her usual morning science class: the one she happened to share with Star Tracker. The two of them greeted each other and chatted as amicably as they normally did, but something about the vibe felt different. There was a nervous tension in the air between them now; Chrysalis didn’t need her changeling abilities to sense it.

Those very changeling abilities also picked up on the sweet and unmistakable taste of infatuation coming from Star. Chrysalis almost hadn’t noticed it at first, and she realized it was because they were the very same feelings she had tasted from him since they first met. Chrysalis couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before.

When the lunch period bell rang, Chrysalis and Star set out to go meet up with their respective friend groups.

“So…we still on for tomorrow?” Star asked.

Chrysalis stood rigid, her stomach full of anxious butterflies. Before today, talking to Star had always been so easy, and now Chrysalis found herself unable to form a single word. She had half a mind to simply tell him that something had come up and she wouldn’t be able to make it on Saturday. Maybe she could say that her grandma was dying and pray that she even had a grandma.

“Sure!” Chrysalis said instead, hoping her smile didn’t look too strained. “Can’t wait!”

Star smiled. “Great!”

The two of them lingered there silently for a moment, then another, neither one evidently knowing how to conclude the conversation.

“Well, I’ll see—”

“See you the—”

“Oh,” Chrysalis waited for him to speak first, then realized he was doing the same thing and quickly shouted, “Bye!” before walking away, feeling like an utter fool.

“What am I going to doooooo?” Chrysalis groaned as she sat with her friends at their usual table in the cafeteria. She had just finished telling them about her interaction with Star Tracker. “Tomorrow’s gonna be so awkward!”

“From what I hear, first dates usually are,” Apple Bloom said.

Sweetie Belle nodded. “But totally worth it once you get past it.”

“But what if I don’t get past it? What if I just make things weird like I always do and he never wants to talk to me again?!”

“Well, you are pretty weird,” Scootaloo said noncommittally.

Chrysalis reared her head at the half-asleep girl eating mashed potatoes and snarled, “CEASE YOUR PRATTLE, WORM! I HAVE NO USE FOR IT!”

“See?”

“Look, if this date is getting you this worked up, maybe you should cancel,” Sweetie Belle suggested.

Chrysalis rounded on her next. “Weren’t you the one suggesting that I go for it just yesterday?”

“Yeah, that was before you started acting crazy about it,” Scootaloo said around a mouthful of food.

Giving Scootaloo a deadpan glance before returning her focus to Chrysalis, Sweetie said, “Blunt, but she has a point. Dates are supposed to be fun. If you don’t think you’re going to have fun, there’s nothing wrong with canceling.”

Chrysalis nodded, an idea coming to her. “Right, okay. I’ll call Celestia and ask if I have a grandma!”

“Uh…what?”

It was around that time that Chrysalis noticed Apple Bloom had been unusually quiet throughout this whole conversation.

“What do you think, Apple Bloom?” Chrysalis asked her.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not exactly very experienced with this sort of thing,” Apple Bloom said, uncharacteristically quiet.

“What are you talking about?” Scootaloo exclaimed. “You’ve technically dated way before any of us have!”

“Yeah, and we all know how that turned out, don’t we?”

Chrysalis looked between all of her friends, who exchanged a single knowing look between them. “Someone wanna fill me in here?”

At that, Apple Bloom gave Chrysalis an apologetic look. “Sorry Chrys, but this is still kind of a…sensitive issue for me. I’ll probably tell you about it someday, just…not today, alright?”

Chrysalis shrugged. “Fair enough.” It wasn’t like she wasn’t keeping her own secrets from them anyway.

“Besides, maybe none of us are qualified to be giving you advice on this anyway,” Apple Bloom continued. “Have you thought about asking your guardians for advice? My folks actually helped a lot with making me feel better about…my thing.”

Chrysalis thought about her conversation with Sable and Celestia (more so Celestia) at dinner the previous night.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Chrysalis said with a shudder.

She then thought of a conversation she’d had with someone else a couple of weeks ago, and realized she’d get the chance to talk to that very person again tonight.

“But I think I just thought of someone I can ask for advice.”

Unlike with the house party with Sunset’s family a few weeks ago, Chrysalis was unable to be completely open about who and what she really was at this mini family gathering of Celestia’s at their place. This was because this time around, someone was attending who was not in the know about all things Equestria. What was more, that very person was the first to arrive, doing so in the company of Chrysalis’s own Principal Luna.

“And you must be the Chrysalis I’ve heard so much about,” the tall dark-haired stranger said after greeting Celestia, extending his hand for Chrysalis to shake while holding a six-pack of beer in the other. “Name’s Moonshadow. Luna’s fiancé.”

Chrysalis took his hand and gave him a casual, “’Sup.”

Moonshadow laughed, and Luna said, “I told you she was charming!”

“Yeah, well you’ll have to tell me all about how it was living in Klamath Falls,” Moonshadow said, and Chrysalis froze. “My family had a cottage up there for years before we sold it in 2008. Used to go every summer!”

Chrysalis tried to give him a friendly smile that was strained at the edges, and somehow still too wide. “Really? What a…fun coincidence!”

“Yeah, you’ll have to tell me what it’s like these days!”

Chrysalis had done just enough research on the Klamath Falls area to be able to bullshit her way through a conversation with someone only mildly familiar with it. In a conversation with someone who practically grew up there, Chrysalis knew she would get found out. Fortunately, she only had a few moments to sweat over it before Luna chimed in.

“Remember Moons, she didn’t exactly have great experiences growing up there. She may not want to talk about it,” she said.

Moonshadow’s eager smile melted away, and the man awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “Right. Of course. My bad….”

The awkward silence that followed was thankfully cut short when Sable emerged from the bathroom, his face freshly shaved.

“Hey there he is!” Moonshadow exclaimed, aiming down the sights of a pair of finger guns pointed Sable’s way.

Sable just chuckled and went over to the younger man, where they clasped hands and exchanged a “bro hug.” He then gave a quick, “Hi Luna,” and gave the woman a much more restrained hug.

“Good to see you, Sable,” Luna replied before the man in question was pulled back to a more testosterone fueled conversation.

“Sable man, when are you gonna come paintballing with me and the guys again?” Moonshadow asked.

“As soon as I have a moment of free time, man. Here, let me put that in the fridge for you.” Taking the six-pack from Moonshadow, Sable led him into the kitchen, the two of them talking about whatever it was guys like them talked about.

“Want me to pour you a glass of wine, Luna?” Celestia asked as she made her own way to the kitchen.

“Please. I’ll take whatever you have that’s red.”

“How about you, Chrys? Want a soda or something?”

“I’m good.”

With that, Celestia disappeared into the kitchen and Chrysalis and Luna were left alone together.

“Thanks for the save back there,” Chrysalis said quietly.

“Never fear, auntie Luna’s got your back!” Luna said, giving Chrysalis a friendly nudge.

Chrysalis just gave her a smile, not really knowing what to say. Luna may have been family (sort of), but lately the only time Chrysalis ever saw her was at school. And it just felt weird having her principal hanging out in her home. However, seeing as the person that Chrysalis really wanted to talk to still had yet to show up, Chrysalis realized she could talk to Luna about something else that was on her mind. That is, at least, assuming that this Luna had anything in common with her equine counterpart.

“Hey, Principal Luna,” Chrysalis started, but Luna interjected.

“We’re not at school, Chrys. You can just call me ‘Luna.’”

“Right–sorry, Luna. This may seem like a weird question, but…do you know a lot about dreams?”

“I actually studied a bit of dream psychology when I was in college. Can’t say I remember all of it that well. Only took it for one semester as an elective,” Luna said. “Why do you ask? Having weird dreams lately?”

“For a while, actually. Pretty much since I started living here with Celestia.”

All too aware of the trauma that Chrysalis had suffered over her life, Luna frowned. “Nightmares?”

“No, actually, they’re more like….” Chrysalis cut herself short as Celestia returned with a glass of wine for Luna, and a second for herself.

“You two want to move this conversation to the living room?” Celestia asked, then added as a follow-up question. “What are you talking about, anyway?”

“Nothing in particular. Just catching up,” Chrysalis said as nonchalantly as she could.

She hadn’t told Celestia or Sable about the strange dreams she’d been having. Mostly because quite a few of them would get…steamy, and she simply wasn’t comfortable talking about that kind of thing with them. The embarrassing talk she had at dinner the other night didn’t help any. Fortunately, Luna seemed to pick up on Chrysalis’s reluctance to continue discussing the topic with Celestia present and simply went along with her sister as she led them to the living room area and the conversation moved on to other things.

It wasn’t long before Celestia went to get started on the dinner and seeing as Sable and Moonshadow were still catching up (they’d both moved onto the balcony, each of them with a beer in hand), Chrysalis was once again left alone with Luna.

“So Chrys, what were you saying earlier about dreams?”

“Right, yeah,” Chrysalis said, trying to figure out how best to word it. “Have you ever heard of a person dreaming that they’re not themselves, but a completely different person? Someone with a whole other life that you see different pieces of every time you fall asleep?”

“Hmm, you mean this other person you become in your dreams is the same person every time?”

Chrysalis nodded. “Yeah. It’s a pony from Equestria. Someone I’ve never met before. Or at least, that I don’t remember meeting.”

Luna took a sip from her glass of wine as she thought about it. “Well, dreaming as someone else isn’t unheard of. When I was still a teacher, I once had a student who said she used to dream about being someone else all the time. One night she dreamed she was an Indian girl on a cruise with her family. Another, she was a forty-year-old blonde woman having an affair with a married man. Another night, she was a Japanese salaryman in Tokyo who kept striking out with women.

“Your dreams seem to be a little different, but I think the same theory applies: That dreaming as someone else means you’re struggling with your identity. If this scenario is a recurring theme in your dreams, it could mean that you’re currently reconstructing your sense of self. The fact that these dreams started around the time you moved in with my sister proves it. I’m sure all of this change hasn’t been easy for you, and you’re still trying to figure out who you are even now.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Chrysalis said.

“Are these dreams bothering you?” Luna asked.

Chrysalis thought of the blissful content feeling she always felt when she was being held in the arms of her dream counterpart’s lover. “No, actually. They’re usually quite nice.” She then thought of the most recent dream she’d had. “The last dream was kind of sad, though. Felt like I was saying goodbye to someone important.”

“That may actually be a good sign. Saying goodbye could very well symbolize you leaving your past self behind.” Luna gave her an encouraging smile. “I think you’re closer to finding yourself than you realize!”

Feeling warmed by Luna’s smile, Chrysalis returned it. “Thanks, Luna. I didn’t know how much I needed to hear that!”

Luna reached over and patted Chrysalis’s shoulder. “It was my pleasure. I hope you know you can always come to me about anything.”

Drinking in the warm, syrup-like feelings of that moment, Chrysalis couldn’t help but notice a hint of the bitter taste of jealousy and longing coming from Luna.

“My sister doesn’t know how lucky she is to have you…” Luna muttered.

“Something wrong, Luna?” Chrysalis asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Luna answered, and then muttered more to herself than to Chrysalis, “There’s still plenty of time left….”

There wasn’t a moment to dwell on Luna’s thoughts and feelings, because just then the doorbell rang. Sable (who happened to already be coming inside from the balcony for another beer) announced that he’d get it and Chrysalis decided to join him, leaving Luna to rendezvous with her fiancé.

Together with Sable, Chrysalis greeted the other two guests arriving for dinner this evening, giving warm hellos to Cadance and Shining Armor. When Sable and Shining locked eyes, Chrysalis noticed a strange sensation pass between them. It seemed to be a mutual understanding and an unspoken agreement. Chrysalis suspected that whatever they had talked about at Sunset’s place weeks ago that had Sable so worried would not be a topic of discussion for them tonight.

Shining and Cadance had supplied what appeared to be freshly-picked corn bought from the farmer’s market on their way over, and Chrysalis volunteered to take it to the kitchen and prepare it. She could wait a little bit before pursuing the conversation she wanted to have. In spite of her efforts to put it off, though, the conversation ended up finding her instead.

“Alright, I’m gonna go mingle for a bit,” Celestia said after putting the chicken parmesan she’d been preparing in the oven. “Have you got things handled in here?”

Chrysalis gave a lazy two-fingered salute as she continued shucking the corn. “Yes, Your Highness.”

Celestia just smiled, grabbed her wine off the counter, and nearly bumped into Cadance on her way out to the living room.

“Anything I can help with in here?” Cadance asked.

“Cady, you know the rules. No guests in the kitchen!”

“Well, I need a beer, so….”

With a smile and a shrug, Celestia said, “Alright, but don’t let me catch you trying to clean up or anything.”

Raising her hands in mock surrender, Cadance said, “I know better than to step into your territory!”

With a laugh, Celestia went back out to the living room, leaving Chrysalis and Cadance alone in the kitchen.

“So, how have things been with you, Chrys?” Cadance asked as she pulled a beer out of the fridge and started rummaging through drawers for a bottle opener.

“Not bad,” Chrysalis said, deciding she might as well just get it out there. “I have a date tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah? Right on!” Cadance exclaimed, having found a bottle opener and cracking open her beer before raising it. “I’ll drink to that.”

Chrysalis grinned as Cadance took a hearty sip. “I was actually hoping to ask you for some advice on it,” she said.

“Oh?”

Chrysalis rubbed the back of her neck. This was going to be more uncomfortable than she thought. “Yeah….”

“So…anything in particular on your mind?” Cadance asked after a beat of silence that was more than a little awkward.

With a mischievous smile, Chrysalis looked around to make sure they were both alone before saying, “Yeah. If I really like the guy, do I suck out his emotional energy on the first date? Or should I give it a few?”

With a grin of her own, Cadance replied, “Trust me, Chrys, never suck on the first date. You don’t want that kind of reputation!”

Chrysalis snorted, which set Cadance off into a giggle fit, and before she knew it both of them were laughing.

“Seriously, though,” Cadance said when their laughter had died down. “What is it about this date that has you so worried?” Cadance then frowned. “Does it have to do with what you went through in Equestria?”

Chrysalis didn’t need her to elaborate on what she meant. “No, actually. For a little while now, I’ve been thinking…I’d like to try being in a real relationship, but….” Chrysalis realized the truth of her conflicted feelings no sooner than as she spoke them aloud, “I don’t know that I like Star Tracker romantically.”

Cadance nodded. “Ah, that would be a problem.”

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good kid. He’s smart, kind, funny and thoughtful. A good friend, but….”

“But you don’t know if he’d be a good boyfriend.”

“Yeah, I just don’t see the point of trying to start a relationship if I don’t think it’ll work out in the end.”

Cadance took a sip from her beer as she considered this. “But you don’t know that it won’t work out in the end. The only way you’ll know for sure is if you just give it a chance.”

“That seems to be the popular opinion,” Chrysalis said.

With a nostalgic smile, Cadance said, “You know, I remember feeling trepidation when Shining Armor first asked me out. I was scared that I’d screw it up somehow and it would all end in tears. But then I realized that the only thing I’d regret more than that was never trying in the first place. That’s not to say this Star Tracker guy will be the One—Shining and I kinda lucked out finding each other so early in life—but still.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” said Chrysalis, feeling a little better. “Thanks, Cadance!”

Just as Chrysalis had been feeling pretty good about the whole situation regarding her upcoming date, did Cadance bring her mood down with the question, “So, is there a reason you came to me with this and not my aunt?”

Shifting uncomfortably, Chrysalis said, “I dunno. It’s embarrassing. She’s, like…for all intents and purposes, she’s my mom.”

“I take it she teased you pretty hard when you told her?” Cadance asked, and Chrysalis gave her an inquisitive look, curious how Cadance could have known. “She did the same thing to me when I first started dating Shining.” With a bashful smile, Cadance said, “She doesn’t mean anything by it, though. She teases out of love.”

“The worst part was when she actually tried giving me a serious talk about…y’know…intimacy.”

Cadance furrowed her brow. “Huh. She never did that with me. She really is going full mom.”

“Good to know she cares, I guess, but it’s not exactly helpful. I’m willing to bet I’m a lot more…experienced with sex than she is.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Cadance said. She then stepped a bit closer and put a hand on Chrysalis’s shoulder. “To start, the horrible things you went through do not count. From where I’m standing, you’re still pure. As for my aunt, she’s…another story.”

Chrysalis looked at Cadance with clear disbelief. “Are you trying to tell me that Celestia…has a wild side?”

“Oh, you have no idea!”

Chrysalis waited for Cadance to elaborate but when she said nothing, Chrysalis said, “Well? You can’t just tell me that and not elaborate!”

“I can, and I will. The choices my aunt made when she was young…they’re her cross to bear. It wouldn’t be right for me to just expose all of her secrets like that,” Cadance said. “If you really want to know, you could always talk to her yourself. I know you want to avoid another ‘Mom Talk’ on the subject, but I really think listening to her could help you.”

Chrysalis was suddenly surprised by the sudden hiss-whoosh of the stove burner behind her as the boiling pot she had put the freshly shucked corn into started to boil over. Gasping, Chrysalis hastily removed the lid of the pot, letting out a hiss of her own as it burned her hands, and started frantically turning down the burner intensity.

“Well, I’m gonna go catch up with Luna,” Cadance said as she took another sip of beer and started heading out of the kitchen, turning back to give Chrysalis one last mischievous grin. “I’d offer to help, but I don’t want to step into Celestia’s territory!”

After a very nice dinner, Luna and her fiancé stayed for one more drink each before going home for the night. Cadance and Shining Armor stuck around a little bit longer, but then decided it was time to call an Uber home (both of them had drank a little bit more than was perhaps their plan). Before Chrysalis knew it, it was just her, Sable and Celestia standing by the front door.

“Guess we should probably start cleaning up,” Celestia said, her words slightly slurred as she started moving towards the kitchen before Sable’s hand on her shoulder stopped her.

“I’ll do that. You and Chrys did enough work preparing the dinner tonight,” he said.

Clearly a little tipsy from the night, Celestia gave him a lidded look and a sultry chuckle. “Knew there was a reason I liked ya….”

Celestia then leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek before whispering something into Sable’s ear that made him turn a bit red. Perhaps it was an effect of the alcohol, but Celestia’s flirting in this moment seemed far more risqué than Chrysalis had ever seen (or tasted), and it made her think of what Cadance had told her earlier in the evening.

Giving Sable a playful smack on the butt as he went to the kitchen, Celestia turned around and for a moment froze when she locked eyes with Chrysalis.

“Oh, shit. I thought you were in your room,” Celestia said. She then took a step forward and nearly stumbled over herself. “I think I had a bit too much wine tonight…. I’m going to sit down for a bit.”

With that, Celestia wobbled past Chrysalis and made her way to the living room. Chrysalis decided that what her guardian needed right now was a glass of water, so she went to the kitchen to get exactly that before joining her in the living room.

“Oh, thank you, sweetie,” Celestia said, taking the glass from Chrysalis and taking a big swig.

Chrysalis took a seat on the couch beside Celestia and the two of them watched the evening news in silence for a minute or two as Sable clattered around in the kitchen.

“Can I ask you a kind of personal question?” Chrysalis asked.

Finishing off her water, Celestia looked at her and tried to blink a little sobriety back into her eyes. “Sure?”

“What was it like dating when you were my age?”

At that, Celestia just giggled; a girlish sound that Chrysalis seldom heard from her. “I may be getting older, but I still have a few millennia to go before I’m your age!” she exclaimed, reaching over and booping Chrysalis’s nose for emphasis.

Chrysalis smiled, kind of enjoying seeing this side of her guardian. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know.” Celestia sighed and leaned back into the couch. “Honestly, there’s not much to talk about when I was in high school. I was the popular girl and could get any guy that I wanted, but only had a couple on-again off-again boyfriends. My real dating adventures started when I was in college.”

Celestia let out a long, rueful sigh. “I dated some reeeeal pieces of shit. Guys that treated me like a dumb bimbo because if I’m being honest, that’s exactly what I was.”

Chrysalis couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The image Celestia was painting went against everything Chrysalis thought she knew about the woman who had adopted her.

“Bookwise…he was a fuckin’…douche canoe.” Chrysalis snorted, and for a brief moment Celestia managed to level a warning glare her way. “Don’t repeat any of what I say, by the way. Anyways, this guy, this…this fuckboy turned out to be engaged to someone else the whole time we were…y’know….” Celestia wiggled her eyebrows.

“I know.”

“You know.”

“I know.”

Celestia nodded, and for a moment Chrysalis thought she was going to say, “You know,” again, and they’d just be stuck in an endless feedback loop. Instead, Celestia continued, “The writing was all over the wall, but I didn’t see it. Got so wrapped up in my own little fairytale. Thought I was gonna marry him and everything. Instead, he calls me a dalliance and then tosses me aside like garbage!”

Celestia talked about it with a jovial tone, but Chrysalis couldn’t help but taste a hint of lingering bitterness. It wasn’t quite the same, but Chrysalis could empathize all too well with being used and discarded for some asshole’s amusement.

“Do you still know where he lives?” Chrysalis asked. “I could pay him a visit and put him in a cocoon if you like.”

“Pfft…” Celestia laughed a drunk and obnoxious laugh. “You’re sweet, but no, I think he’s perfectly miserable right now. I looked him up a few years after graduating, just for fun. His wife divorced him not even a year after they’d been married. Apparently caught him with another dalliance. And let’s just say this one was young enough to get him into some serious legal trouble.”

“Hmph. Sounds like a real charmer.”

“Yup, and he wasn’t the last one. I got stuck in a cycle of dating shitty guys, and I blew it with the one decent guy I tried dating because….” With a wobbly smile Celestia looked at Chrysalis and said, “If you think I’m drunk now, you should’ve seen how I drank thirty years ago.” She then added with a rueful sigh, “My liver was beautiful then….”

Chrysalis could only sit there next to her as she tried to reassemble the image of Celestia, the successful administrator and loving caregiver.

With another sigh, Celestia shifted, leaned on Chrysalis and said, “You’re much smarter than I was at your age. Your Star Tracker friend sounds like the perfect guy and you’re still agonizing about whether dating him’s the right choice.” She then put her arm around Chrysalis’s shoulders. “The person you end up marrying is going to be like if Superman and Captain America had a kid—y’know, when science makes that possible—and I can’t wait to watch Sable walk you down the aisle!”

Chrysalis laughed. “Thanks, but that’s probably not gonna happen for a long time.”

“Well, don’t keep me waiting too long. I’m not getting any younger!”

A somewhat depressing thought occurred to Chrysalis then. “What if I’m not ready for a relationship until well after you’re gone? I’ll probably outlive you by quite a number of years, after all. What if you never get to see me marry?”

Celestia closed her eyes and hummed. “It’ll be sad, but I’d rather you wait if you’re really not sure. Not everyone is ready at the ideal time. I mean, just look at me. I’m well into my fifties and never married. After college, I had a couple more relationships, but nothing in the past decade until I met Sable last summer.”

Celestia let out a yawn, and her voice grew fainter as she started to drift off. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all of my crazy sexcapades, it’s that you just can’t rush love and relationships. Could I have had a serious relationship that led me to marriage and kids years ago? Maybe. But I wouldn’t have met Sable, and who even knows if I would have met you. And knowing how I was back then, I probably would’ve torpedoed any good relationship I might have had anyway. Because the truth is, I think part of me was meant to have you two come into my life, even if I didn’t know it at the time.” Celestia yawned again. “And if something similar turns out to be the case for you, then that’s okay….”

“Huh. That actually makes me feel a lot better about tomorrow. Thanks, M—uh, Celes….”

Chrysalis was interrupted by a soft snore, and she realized that Celestia was out for the night. So with her arm already draped over Chrysalis’s shoulders, Chrysalis lifted Celestia up off the couch and carried her to the master bedroom. With Chrysalis’s unnatural strength, Celestia was surprisingly light, and in no time Chrysalis had her tucked into her bed.

Lingering a moment longer, Chrysalis looked at the woman asleep in a cocoon of bedsheets, feeling closer to her now than she ever had before. Celestia wasn’t just her savior, or the woman whose house Chrysalis lived in. She was a smart and capable woman with more wisdom and experience accumulated over her few decades of living than Chrysalis had in millennia. And for all of her faults, past and present, the person moulded by those experiences used them to make Chrysalis feel at home and loved unconditionally.

So, Chrysalis was compelled to kiss her forehead before she whispered, “Goodnight, Mom.”

For the first time in weeks, Chrysalis didn’t dream. Waking up that Saturday morning almost left her feeling empty. It seemed likely that Luna was right, and that her dreams of being “Queen Calyx” were merely a manifestation of her fractured sense of identity. And that her dream of saying goodbye to Sunburst was her finally settling into who she was now. Still, Chrysalis would miss living out that fantasy romance. But today, she was going to try her hand at a very real one.

Sable had offered to drive Chrysalis to her date, saying that he had some errands to run anyway. He even asked her how Star Tracker was getting to the theater, and when Chrysalis said he was probably taking the bus, Sable said, “Nonsense! Tell him I’ll give you both a ride.” That should have been Chrysalis’s first clue to his intentions.

Instead, the first indication to Chrysalis that Sable was up to something came when she saw what he was wearing around his neck.

“Are those your Army dog tags?” Chrysalis asked.

Sable merely grunted an affirmative and asked if she was ready to go.

Chrysalis gave Sable Star Tracker’s address—perhaps naively—and before she knew it, she and Sable had pulled up to the curb beside Star’s house.

“Hi Chrys,” Star greeted as Chrysalis stepped out of the car. His voice caught in his throat a little when he got a good look at her. “Wow. You look…nice.”

“Thanks,” Chrysalis said. She had decided to dress up a little for the occasion. Nothing too fancy, just a decent black skirt and leggings that weren’t torn up, a dark green top and a choker. All of this she wore under a simple black jacket and a green scarf to ward away the cold November air.

Then Sable got out of the car, absolutely looming over the much shorter Star, who seemed to shrink even more in his presence.

“So, you must be the Star Tracker I heard so much about,” Sable said, offering his hand to shake. “I’m Chrysalis’s legal guardian, Sable Loam.”

Star’s anxiety was palpable as he took Sable’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Loam. Wow you’ve got a strong grip!”

Star was noticeably wincing in pain as Sable dragged out the handshake just a touch longer than was usually considered normal. Chrysalis noticed Star’s eyes nervously flick to the military dog tags dangling from Sable’s neck. Finally, Sable released Star from his grip and his gaze drifted from the anxious teenage boy to his house.

“So, this is where you live, huh?” Sable said, his gaze not leaving the house.

“Uh, y-yeah. With my Bubi,” Star answered.

Sable let his gaze linger on the house just long enough to get the message across: I know where you sleep.

“Alright, let’s get going!” Sable said, breaking his gaze with Star’s house and giving the boy in question a faux-friendly slap on the shoulder hard enough to elicit a quiet whimper from him.

With both Chrysalis and Star Tracker riding in the back, the drive to the movie theater was uncomfortably silent and was broken up only once when Sable elected to up the tension even more.

“You ever seen a gun before, Star Tracker?” Sable asked as they stopped at a red light.

“Uh…w-what?” was Star’s nervous reply.

Sable then reached over, opened the glove box and to even Chrysalis’ shock, pulled out what appeared to be a loaded handgun.

“One of these,” Sable said, holding it up so Star could see it.

Noticeably sweating now, Star managed to stammer, “Y-yeah. Yeah, I’ve seen ‘em….”

“You ever shoot one before?”

“Uh…not really, no. No.”

Sable just looked him dead in the eye and gave him a nod. “Mm. Hope you never have to.”

With that, the light turned green, and Sable put the gun back into the glove compartment but didn’t bother to close it before he pulled through the intersection and kept driving. At that moment Sable suddenly started to chuckle, which very quickly evolved into full blown laughter. Before Chrysalis knew it, Sable was just laughing like a complete maniac while in the glove box beside him, his handgun sat in plain view just chilling next to the car’s registration.

Chrysalis and Star both exchanged a look, and although neither of them said a word, the mental conversation was clear.

Is your dad fucking insane? asked Star’s terrified facial expression.

I think he just might be, replied Chrysalis’s own mortified face.

Finally, Sable’s mad laughter petered out, and he said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just thought of a very funny Saturday Night Live skit.”

None too soon, they arrived at the movie theater and Sable said, “Alright, you kids enjoy the movie!”

“ThankyouverymuchMr.Loam!” Star exclaimed, wasting absolutely no time in getting out of the car.

Chrysalis lingered just a bit to lean over Sable’s shoulder. “Laying it on a little thick, don’t you think?” she asked.

Sable just shrugged. “I may have gotten a little carried away.”

Chrysalis sighed, smiling in spite of it all. “Alright, well thanks for the ride.”

“Don’t forget….”

“Yeah yeah, be home before six. I know the rules.”

“And make sure to always stay in a public place,” Sable added as Chrysalis stepped out of the car.

Now standing at the movie theater entrance, Chrysalis gave Star a little nudge and asked, “You good?”

“Yeah, just…what’s the deal with your dad?” Star asked. “Has he, like…killed people before?”

Deciding not to correct Star’s referring to Sable as her dad, Chrysalis remembered that she had witnessed first hand just what an efficient killer Sable Loam was, but she couldn’t exactly tell Star that.

“Well, he was a Ranger in the Army. Served in Afghanistan,” Chrysalis said, opting for a lie by omission only. “The one time I asked him what he did when he was in the Army, the only answer he gave me was that he’d done some things he wasn’t proud of.”

It was the truth. Sable never talked to her at length about his time in the US military, and Chrysalis didn’t expect him to any time soon.

“Yeesh.”

“Don’t let him bother you too much, he was just messing with you. He’s actually very sweet once you get to know him.” What Chrysalis didn’t mention was that of the three people in that car, Sable was only the second most dangerous. “Anyway, have you got the tickets?”

“Oh yeah!” Star exclaimed, his mood instantly picking up now that the talk of the horrifying father-figure interaction was being left behind. “We should have enough time to get some snacks and get in before the previews start!”

As Chrysalis and Star Tracker entered the movie theater, a group of three young boys around the age of ten were just leaving in the company of their chaperone. Neither of the two groups acknowledged each other, passing like ships in the night. Had Chrysalis turned around while standing in line at the confections counter, she would have noticed Sunset Shimmer’s little brother Spike talking animatedly about the exciting superhero movie they’d just seen. And had Spike not been so wrapped up in the afterglow of a thoroughly enjoyable summer popcorn flick, he would have noticed Chrysalis. However, Featherweight did notice the apparent werewolf girl that he’d seen on Halloween a couple of weeks ago, and just like that he forgot all about the movie they’d just seen.

In spite of the truly amazing footage that Featherweight had captured on that night, he was until that moment very reluctant to show it to anyone. A big reason was that he had no idea what he had really seen that night, and whether showing someone would draw the werewolf girl’s attention to him. If she was really keeping her lycanthropy a secret like Featherweight suspected, if she found out he had this video of her, she might just decide to make him her next meal! That wasn’t, however, the only reason.

The Friday his parents first got him his new camera, Featherweight had been ecstatic and had wasted no time going outside and snapping photos in the yard. He must have spent hours out there just snapping photos of whatever caught his eye. Plants, birds, cars, squirrels, and sooner or later he had started snapping photos of people that interested him too. A woman sitting on her porch with a baby, an old man walking the biggest dog he’d ever seen, two kids his age playing in the yard.

And then he saw the older teenage girl across the street in her bedroom window. The sun had been going down, leaving the sky a beautiful mix of blues and oranges, and the girl was beautifully silhouetted by the light of her bedroom. With the autumn leaves of the nearby branches framing the bedroom window perfectly, it was the kind of shot you’d see on one of the professional photography sites Featherweight liked to visit, so he snapped a couple of photos without hesitation.

That was when he suddenly heard his mother’s shrill voice screaming, “FEATHERWEIGHT! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”

Featherweight didn’t even have time to explain that the stars had aligned to give him a perfectly composed shot before his mother had grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back into the house yelling furiously the whole time. Featherweight had been terrified: he’d never seen his mother so angry before in his young life. She’d brought him straight to his father, who had been in the living room watching TV, and had exclaimed to him that their son was a “Peeping Tom.” Whatever that meant.

“Mom, what did I do?” Featherweight had asked her, on the verge of tears.

His mom had only yelled, “IS THIS THE REASON YOU WANTED A CAMERA? TO TAKE PICTURES OF GIRLS UNDRESSING THEMSELVES?”

Featherweight hadn’t even noticed that the girl in the window was undressing, and he certainly didn’t understand why that was such a bad thing.

After calming his mother down, Featherweight’s father explained that taking pictures of girls without them knowing—especially if they didn’t have clothes on—was a Very Bad Thing. He then proceeded to give him a long lecture about what a boy and a girl who love each other do together, but by that point Featherweight was in tears and didn’t really understand.

“The most important thing to remember is consent,” his father said when he was wrapping up their talk. “Consent means that if you ever want to do that kind of thing with a girl—even if it’s something as seemingly harmless as taking her picture—you need to ask her if it’s okay first. Do you understand?”

Featherweight didn’t understand a lot of what his father said, but asking for permission made plenty of sense to him, so he nodded and promised to never do it again. His parents then both looked over his shoulder as he, to his regret, deleted the most beautiful photos he had taken that evening. They had then confiscated his camera and he was grounded for the rest of the weekend, only getting his camera privileges back when Halloween rolled around on Monday.

He made sure to ask for consent from every costumed trick or treater he photographed that night, except for one: the werewolf girl. He hadn’t expected the huge lupine he saw in Owl Park to turn into a girl, and after what he’d seen he was too scared to even approach her.

That was why, when he arrived home that fateful night, he downloaded all of the night’s photos onto his computer except for the video of the werewolf girl. He couldn’t help but picture his mom seeing it and asking him with barely contained fury, “Did you get her consent? Or are you still a Peeping Tom?” In fact, a few times over the course of the week, he very nearly deleted the video from his camera as if his parents were there looking over his shoulder. But every time the message popped up asking “Are you sure?” Featherweight always hit CANCEL. The video was one of a kind, something he’d never capture again even if he grew up to be an award-winning photographer like the ones on the sites he visited.

It was special and catching a glimpse of the werewolf girl at the movie theater made him realize that it was past time he showed someone.

But Featherweight remained quiet as he left the theater with his friends Spike, Pipsqueak, and his mother, who had agreed to be their chaperone for this little outing. He couldn’t afford to let her see it, she wouldn’t understand, and he’d just get in trouble again.

Fortunately, his opportunity came when they went across the street to Scoops. It was something of a family tradition that Featherweight and his parents went to Scoops—the ice cream parlor across the street from the movie theater—every time they saw a movie together. After buying ice cream for Featherweight and his friends, his mom’s phone rang and she stepped outside to answer what was likely to be one of her many lengthy work calls.

So, Featherweight and his friends took a seat at one of the tables, and after glancing at the other patrons of Scoops—seeing only a petite teenage girl with pale blue hair and a pink blouse on an apparent date across the parlor—Featherweight pulled his camera out of its bag.

“Do you guys wanna see something crazy?” he asked, and Spike and Pipsqueak nodded.

Featherweight brought up the video he recorded on Halloween and looked both of his friends in the eye. “What I am about to show you, you have to swear you won’t tell anyone,” he told them.

Pipsqueak laughed and said, “What, you get a picture of Bigfoot or something?”

Joining in the laughter, Spike said, “No, it’s probably just a big hairy guy that’s out of focus!”

The two of them laughed even harder, while Featherweight leveled his best serious glare at them. “I’m not joking, you guys! On Halloween I…saw something, and…I don’t really know what to do with it.” His two friends stopped laughing when they saw how serious he was. “Swear you won’t tell!”

Spike and Pipsqueak exchanged a look. “Okay okay, I won’t tell,” Spike said.

“Yeah, cross my heart and all that,” Pip added.

That was enough for Featherweight, so he flipped the camera’s playback screen towards them and played his recording from Halloween. He studied the faces of his two friends, who watched with confusion and intrigue.

“What is this, some kind of CGI animation?” Pip asked.

“Just watch!” Featherweight exclaimed, glancing briefly out the window where his mom was still on the phone.

Soon, the part of the recording where the apparent werewolf transformed into the girl played out, and to Featherweight’s surprise, it was Spike who gasped, “Chrysalis?”

“Chrysalis?!” Featherweight exclaimed, perhaps a tad loud. “Wait–Spike, do you know this girl?”

Suddenly looking very nervous, Spike brushed aside his hair and said, “W-well…sorta. She’s a friend of my sister’s, but….”

“Your sister?! You have to warn her! This girl’s some kinda monster!”

“Wait, are you trying to tell us this video is real?!” Pipsqueak asked.

Featherweight was about to answer in the affirmative when Spike suddenly said, “Are you crazy? Of course this isn’t real! It’s obviously done with After Effects.”

Featherweight wasn’t sure why, but Spike looked nervous. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead even as he was taking another bite of his ice cream.

“It is real! I saw this with my own eyes!” Featherweight insisted.

“Yeah, sure you did. It’s just that I can see the harsh lines where you comped it,” Spike insisted, clearly trying to look and sound more relaxed than he was. “I’ve watched tutorials for how to make this kind of stuff on YouTube. It’s not that hard!”

Featherweight couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Spike usually always took his side! “Why are you being like this? This is real, I swear!”

“Why are you being like this?” Spike asked in response. “I know you worked hard on your video, but why are you so desperate for us to believe that it’s real?!”

“Can we please not fight, guys?” Pip asked, looking back and forth between them with increasing worry.

“Excuse me, boys?” A soft female voice spoke up right behind Featherweight, and for a moment he thought his mom had busted him for being a “Peeping Tom” or whatever again.

He quickly realized that the soft, sweet high-pitched voice could not have been the much more mature and sophisticated voice of his mother and looked over his shoulder to see the girl in a pink blouse with pale blue hair in rolls that he had seen sitting across Scoops earlier. The boy she had been sitting with was still at that very same table but was idly checking his phone as his apparent date stood looking at Featherweight and his friends with kind eyes and a sugary sweet smile that gave her face dimples.

“I couldn’t help but overhear you mention the name ‘Chrysalis,’” the girl said, still smiling her sweetly innocent smile. “Is she, by chance, the subject of that video you boys have been arguing about so loudly?”

“What’s it to you?” Spike asked, sounding curiously defensive.

“Chrysalis is the name of one of my best friends at school,” the friendly girl said, idly fidgeting her foot on her toe as she played with a loose strand of her hair. “May I see that video? I’m curious if it’s the same Chrysalis that I know.”

“I don’t know…” Featherweight said. He’d only planned on showing it to his friends for now.

“Pretty pleeeeeease?” the girl begged, giving him some pretty irresistible puppy dog eyes.

It should be fine if she’s this girl’s friend, Featherweight reasoned. He glanced out the window. His mother was getting more animated with her talking gestures, which meant she was far from finishing her phone call. “Okay, just a quick look.”

Featherweight showed her the video, and like with his own friends, studied the girl’s face for her reaction. But her face suddenly became an unreadable mask as she studied the video playing before her like a military tactician figuring out their next move.

“My friend’s practicing his VFX skills,” Spike said completely unprompted as she watched.

When the girl finally finished, she looked at Featherweight and said, “Have you showed this to anyone else?”

Featherweight shook his head. “Just you and my friends at this table.”

“Okay. Listen, sweetie…I need to take this from you.”

“W-what?” Featherweight said, pulling his camera away from the girl and clutching it tight.

At that, the girl let out a cute giggle. “I don’t mean your camera, silly! I just mean the video.”

“Oh…I don’t know….”

“Listen, uh…” the girl paused, and Featherweight realized she was prompting him for his name.

“Featherweight.”

“Featherweight. My friend here is very camera shy. And the fact is, this isn’t a very flattering angle you have of her. What kind of friend would I be if I just left something like this in some stranger’s hands?”

Featherweight shrugged. “Not a very good one, I guess?”

“Right. All I want is to borrow that memory card for a sec to download that video to my laptop for safekeeping.”

Featherweight looked down at the camera in his hands. As dangerous as it felt holding on to that video, he still felt a sense of pride and ownership over it.

Seeming to sense his hesitation, the girl frowned and said, “There’s also the fact that by the looks of it, you took this video of her without her knowing.”

Featherweight could hear his father calmly but sternly explaining to him, Consent. You didn’t get her consent.

“I’m sure you didn’t mean anything bad by it, but you don’t want people to think you’re some kinda creep, right?” the girl continued.

Featherweight heard his mom’s voice next. I knew you were a Peeping Tom! Where did we go wrong raising you?!

He ejected the memory card from his camera. “Okay. You can have it.”

At that, the girl, whose cheery demeanor had been gradually fraying as the conversation went on, gave him a cute bubbly smile so fast it was almost jarring. “Thanks, Featherweight! You did the right thing!”

Taking the memory card, the girl quickly ran back to her table and pulled a bright pink laptop out of her bag. Featherweight glanced out the window at his mom, who seemed to be wrapping up her phone call. Just as quickly as she left, the girl returned and placed his memory card back into his hand…along with what appeared to be fifty dollars in cash.

“Whoa!” exclaimed Pip.

“Split that amongst your friends however you want, as long as that video remains our little secret, okay?” the girl said, smiling sweetly one more time. “You’re doing my friend a huge favor. I’m sure she’ll be very grateful.”

Booting up his camera and seeing one less video in his media, Featherweight actually felt a sense of relief. It was an amazing video, but he was no longer sure it was worth the stress of having. He was perfectly okay with just forgetting the whole thing as the girl suggested.

“Thanks for this,” Spike said, curiously enough sounding relieved. “Glad to know Chrys has such dependable friends.”

At this the girl smiled so wide it almost seemed scary. “Oh, yes. She has no idea!”

After the movie, Star asked Chrysalis if she wanted to get ice cream, and craving something sweet after the salty buttery popcorn of the theater, she said, “Sure!”

To Chrysalis’s mild surprise, Star took her hand in his own as they walked out of the theater onto the sidewalk. Star nervously tried to smile at her, but Chrysalis’s mind was racing too fast to smile back as she started overthinking what was ultimately a simple gesture of affection. Star quickly let go of her hand, perhaps interpreting her lack of response as a sign that she wasn’t into it.

As they stood at the crosswalk waiting for the light to change, Chrysalis tried to wrap her head around the date so far. She was enjoying herself, that much was certain. The movie was good, and she’d made her own efforts to ‘put herself out there,’ so to speak.

Since Star had bought the tickets, Chrysalis had offered to buy the snacks, and rather than buy two small popcorns for both of them, she elected to buy one large. This was on the pretense that it was the cheaper option, but it also allowed her to tease him a little by brushing his hand with her pinkie finger whenever they both reached for a handful of popcorn at the same time. She had to admit, seeing his nervous reaction to that was hilarious and even cute. Even so, something about the whole thing just felt…off.

She realized what it was as the two of them sat down at Scoops (ironically and unbeknownst to her, at the same table Featherweight and his friends had been at hours before) with their respective bowls of ice cream. As she and Star casually joked around and talked about the movie they’d just seen, Chrysalis didn’t feel any pressure to flirt, or do anything similarly “date” like. She was at her most comfortable just talking with Star as a friend, and that alone was what made her realize how this date was going to end.

“Thanks for taking me out today, Star,” Chrysalis said as the two of them walked through the park after having finished their ice cream at Scoops. She gave him a shy smile and said, “I had a really nice time.”

“Really?” Star asked, clearing his throat. “So, I wasn’t a complete awkward mess?”

“You’re always a complete awkward mess,” Chrysalis said, nudging his arm. “But so am I, so you’re in good company!”

“That’s true. You’re the first girl I’ve met who talks like a supervillain when she gets excited.”

The two of them chuckled as they kept walking. Chrysalis pulled her jacket tighter around herself as a chill wind blew through the bare trees.

“Do you mind if I ask…see, I’ve been wondering for some time now…” Chrysalis stammered. “Seeing as I’m an awkward mess who occasionally talks like a supervillain…what exactly is it that you like about me?”

With a shrug, Star said, “What’s not to like? You’re smart, dependable, you have a twisted sense of humor, and of course…you’re absolutely gorgeous.” Star let out a nervous chuckle, more to distract from his own awkwardness than at anything particularly funny.

Chrysalis couldn’t help but smile, both at his own self-deprecating folly as well as the sincerity of his compliments. This was the first time anyone had called her gorgeous, and it gave her a fuzzy feeling inside that beat away the frigid November air better than a jacket and scarf.

“But more than all of that, you carry yourself with such…maturity,” Star continued. “I don’t know how to describe it, it’s like…it’s like you’re an adult in a girl’s body.”

Just like that, the warm feeling inside her plummeted into a dark, cold pit as Chrysalis realized the real reason this date just didn’t feel right.

Seeing the apparent change on Chrysalis’s face, Star frowned and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to call you old or anything like that….”

“It’s okay, I’m not offended,” Chrysalis said, looking down at her hand and all at once being acutely aware of how it really looked. “I suppose I am quite old….” Star gave her a confused look, and she quickly amended with, “I mean, I’m an old soul, if the term’s right. I like a lot of stuff older people do.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Star nodded in agreement.

Her deflection aside, Chrysalis wasn’t sure what to say further as she came to terms with the simple truth: That they were—almost literally—worlds apart. How could this sweet boy, who’d been raised in a loving home with a loving family, ever be able to relate to her, who had experienced and caused so much pain? Were all of those nice things he said about her even true? Or were they the image of some other, idealized Chrysalis who only existed in his mind? Would he still feel the same way about her if he knew the kind of person she really was?

And then there were the other concerns: despite the fact that she looked like a fourteen year-old-girl, she really had no idea how old she really was. By Earth standards alone, she was centuries old. But she’d also been punted back in time when she ended up in the Crystal Empire and had to live a thousand years of pain and misery. Given everything that happened to her, trying to figure out her true age was a trivial issue. But it also meant there was a gulf of maturity between her and others she knew. She could cross the gap for her friends, and for her family, but...could it work that way for love?

Suddenly, Chrysalis felt a hand on hers, and she saw Star looking at her with open concern. “Chrys? Is something wrong?”

“No. Why would there be?”

“it’s just…you’re crying.”

“I am?” Chrysalis asked, brushing her fingers across her cheek and finding them wet. “Oh. I guess I am.”

Star took her other hand in his and looked up into her teary eyes. “If there’s something wrong, you can tell me. It’s okay.” Star said softly, with a tenderness that suddenly made this small, awkward boy seem—like her—older than he appeared.

“No really, it’s fine,” Chrysalis said, wiping her eyes one last time with the sleeve of her jacket as she composed herself. “You’re pretty wise beyond your years too, you know. Not to mention sweet, funny and…charmingly dorky. Any girl would be lucky to be with you.”

Demonstrating some of that very same ageless wisdom, Star figured out where this conversation was going right away. “Just not you.”

“Yeah, just not me.”

The two stood facing each other beneath the bare trees of the empty park for several silent seconds. Chrysalis could see the crushing disappointment on Star’s face and decided to elaborate.

“I thought I was ready for this kind of relationship, but…I guess I still have a lot I need to figure out.”

“I understand,” Star said, his voice straining. He didn’t really understand, of course, but Chrysalis knew he was trying. “I hope we can still be friends.”

“Of course! You kidding? We’ll talk again in class on Monday, and there will be no arguing the point!”

Star chuckled. “Alright, Maleficent!”

Chrysalis laughed and gave him a whap on the shoulder. She then wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into an embrace, which Star returned after only a moment’s hesitation.

“Thanks again for today,” Chrysalis said before the two of them parted ways to return to their respective homes.

When Chrysalis arrived home that evening, Celestia was working on something on her laptop, stopping when she saw Chrysalis come in.

“So, how’d it go?” Celestia asked.

“Fine.”

Celestia frowned. “Just fine?”

With a sad nod, Chrysalis said, “Yeah, we decided to just stay friends.”

“Well, I think that’s very mature of both of you.”

“Sure, it’s just…” Chrysalis sighed as she sat down at the table adjacent to Celestia, who took off her reading glasses. “I really, really wanted a relationship, if only so I could prove to myself that I’m not too…broken to have one.”

“You’re not broken, Chrys.”

“Aren’t I?” Chrysalis could feel tears start to well up in her eyes again, and she cursed her stupid heart for making her feel this way. “If I hadn’t lived multiple lifetimes of torture and pain—if I’d just been able to have a normal life—then maybe I could have had something good with Star Tracker. Instead, I….” She sniffed, and her voice broke as she said, “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay enough to find somebody to love.”

Celestia reached across the table and took Chrysalis’s hand as she quietly sobbed, feeling like an utter moron for it.

“You will find someone to love, and I’m not just giving you empty platitudes,” Celestia said. “You’re a good person with a good heart, Chrysalis, and you are so much more than the things you’ve suffered and done. That’s why the right person won’t care about any of that. You have value because of who you are right now, not who you were.”

Wiping her nose, Chrysalis said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Still, I don’t think I’ll be dating again any time soon.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Yeah, I guess there’s still a lot about myself I still need to figure out, in spite of what Luna’s dream analysis said.”

Celestia tilted her head. “What?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Chrysalis said, standing up from the chair and heading to her room. “Want me to help with the dinner?”

“No, it’s okay. Just take it easy, sweetie.”

It then occurred to Chrysalis that she was comfortable enough to give Star Tracker a hug earlier that afternoon. Surely, she could get over her issues for the woman who had done so much for her.

Chrysalis wrapped her arms around a slightly surprised Celestia and hugged her tight. “Thank you so much for everything, Mo…uh, Celestia.”

Celestia laughed and said, “Anytime, sweetie.”

Chrysalis let go and took another step towards her room.

“You know, it’s okay to just call me ‘Mom’ if you really want,” Celestia said with a grin. “You already did before, after all.”

Chrysalis was about to ask when she had done so when she remembered putting a drunk, sleeping Celestia to bed the night before. At least, Chrysalis had thought she’d been asleep.

“I see somebody was not nearly as drunk and passed out last night as they appeared,” Chrysalis said.

But Celestia just looked confused. “Oh, trust me, I was out like a light. There was nothing fake about the killer headache I had this morning.”

“Oh. Then…when did I…?”

“You’ve been slipping up for a while now, missy!” Celestia said with a laugh. “Just saying. Might as well own it!”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Ugh, fine…Mom.”

The two of them giggled, and somehow Chrysalis found herself already feeling better about everything.

She wasn’t sure how it had all gone so wrong. As the months went on, letters from Sunburst on his quest for Rosegarden stopped appearing. Calyx tried to keep hope that her love was entirely focused on his toils and simply hadn’t time to write, but as time went on more and more she wondered whether he had simply forgotten her. Or worse, if he had suffered a terrible fate.

Then suddenly and without warning, Lord Briarthorn showed his true colors, and the depths of his depravity turned out to be beyond anything Calyx could imagine. He and his allies mustered their strength and launched a swift and brutal coup, attacking the capital and slaying indiscriminately like a pack of griffon reavers. The most loyal of her guards and servants were unceremoniously executed in front of her and soon she was entirely at Briarthorn’s mercy.

“You’ve just signed your death warrant, cur!” she spat as the wretch pinned her to the floor at the foot of her own throne. “When Sunburst returns with Rosegarden, he will use it to rend your head from your shoulders!”

At that, Briarthorn only laughed and said, “He’ll be hard pressed to swing a sword as a corpse in the ground!”

What was he saying? Was Sunburst…? No, he can’t be! “You lie!”

“I’ve lied about much, true enough, but now that your kingdom is finally mine, I have no more use for deception,” Briarthorn sneered. “My assassins have silenced Sunburst once and for all, and now you will be my queen. Purely for appearance’s sake, of course. In truth, you will be nought but my whore. A role far more suited to you, methinks.”

Still pinning her down on her stomach, Briarthorn moved to straddle her, and she could feel his hot stinking breath on her neck as he whispered almost tenderly into her ear, “Play the role well enough, and I may just give you Sunburst’s pelt as a wedding gift!”

What followed was what seemed an eternity of agony and humiliation the likes of which Calyx couldn’t have dreamed of in her worst nightmares. The hideous true face of Briarthorn’s cruelty showed itself to her as the monster penetrated her with flesh and steel both. Calyx screamed until she had no voice left and wept until she had no tears remaining. She was empty; a mere husk, and as she lay, defiled and mutilated in what had once been her hall of power, she silently prayed for death to save her.

Instead of death, something much different and far more useful came to her aid. Rage. Pure, burning anger and hatred began to burn within her like fire, starting as mere embers and growing into a white-hot blaze burning out of control.

Calyx rose on her gnarled, perforated legs, letting the pain fuel her fury. Briarthorn, who had since reclined on her throne, looked at her with wide disbelieving eyes as if she were the monster of the two of them. Fear and panic clear on his face, Briarthorn frantically ordered his guards to restrain her. She sent each of them flying with unnatural strength as she felt her body change until finally, there was nothing left between her and Briarthorn.

“Demon! Stay back!” Briarthorn exclaimed, pressing himself into the back of his stolen throne.

Calyx looked down at the pathetic, cowering stallion (somehow, she was much taller now) and said, her hoarse voice distorted by whatever magic was at play here. “Beg for your life, you miserable wretch. Beg for my forgiveness!”

Still sitting on his ill-gotten throne, Briarthorn bowed his head low and actually started to weep. “Please…forgive me! I will do anything you ask, just please…please don’t kill me!”

She sneered and said, “Good. This role is far more suited to you, methinks.”

She then ducked her head and rammed her now twisted horn through Briarthorn’s cold black heart. When the last of his death throes finished and he lay still, Calyx pulled her horn from Briarthorn’s body. Her tormentor was dead but seeing his corpse did nothing to calm the burning tempest within her. She was seeing red, and it wasn’t just the blood that had poured from Briarthorn’s heart over her eyes. She ended it too quickly. She should have made him suffer longer. Yes, suffer like she suffered.

The doors to the hall suddenly opened, and more of Briarthorn’s mercenaries poured in. When they saw the slew of bodies and Calyx standing at the center of them, all of them stared at her, their mouths agape.

“What in Tartarus is that thing?!” one of them exclaimed.

“Whatever it is, it killed our patron,” another said.

The apparent leader of this particular group drew his sword. “Words won’t work with this thing. Best to just kill it quickly!”

The rest of the mercenaries drew their swords and the thing that had once been Queen Calyx grinned, taking a step towards them as a sickly green magical energy crackled all around her. They would suffice as a target of her anger.

The next stretch of time was a blur to the former Queen Calyx as she moved through the castle killing all who crossed her path. There was just so much blood everywhere, she could no longer tell the difference between one face and another. Every pony who crossed her path looked at her with the same expression of horror and revulsion that she hadn’t even noticed that she had long run out of mercenaries to slaughter and had moved on to exacting vengeance on innocents.

At long last, a female voice returned some of her senses. “CALYX! CEASE THY MAYHEM, ANON!”

Blinking some of the gore out of her eyes, she looked around. She was standing in the market square at the center of town. Buildings were burning, and she couldn’t remember whether Briarthorn’s forces had done that, or she had. Same with the bodies strewn around her.

She then found the source of the voice: a figure on two legs with blonde hair and wearing the armor of a knight. Calyx knew her on sight.

“Late is the hour of your arrival, Megan!” She spat. “Where were you when all those loyal to me were being slaughtered? Where were you when I was being tortured and defiled! WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THE ONLY PONY I HAD LEFT TO LOVE WAS SLAIN?”

Like the others, the Megan looked at her like she was a monster and not a pony. But unlike them, the Megan regarded her not with terror and disgust, but with pity. It mattered not to Calyx.

She slammed a hoof down, cracking the cobblestone beneath her. “ANSWER ME!”

“I proffer mine most humble apologies that I wast unable to save thy soul,” the Megan said solemnly. “Either thee ‘r Sunburst. All I canst doth anon is to stand ho further bloodsh’d.”

“So, you would turn your blade on me, now? You are no different from the rest of them!”

She then looked down at the fountain that was the centerpiece of this once great city. The water was filthy; tainted by the bodies now floating in it, but she could still see her reflection, and the creature looking back at her was a stranger. Where once there was a soft white coat there was now black chitinous skin. Her once regal horn was now gnarled and twisted like the branch of a dead tree. She had fangs, a green carapace and perhaps most surprising of all, insect-like wings.

She looked from her strange reflection to the Megan and asked, “What have I become?”

The Megan looked at something distant and perhaps not even present. “I ken not. I hath found thee as but a babe: a creature unlike any I’d ev’r seen ere ‘r since. At first, I kneweth not what with thee, but kept, did feed and car’d f’r thee. Then one day, ere mine own eyes, thou chang’st from an alien infant to an infant pony, and yond is what thee has’t been ev’r since.

“I discern’d I couldst not keepsake such a babe, so I keep-bond’d thee to the king and queen of this land, who hadst been unable to produce an heir of their own. They did love thee as if ‘t be true thee wast their own blood right up until the days of their deaths.”

Even in her right mind, the thing that had been Calyx would have had trouble processing this. Now, already broken and in pain, it was impossible. “You expect me to believe such lies?”

The Megan only gestured to the filthy water upon which Calyx had seen her reflection. “Doest not thou feel true thine own eyes? The soon’r thee accept the verity, the soon’r thou shall best able to pass this moot behind thee.”

“There is no putting this behind me! Briarthorn took everything from me, and now you stand there and tell me my entire life was built on a lie!?”

“‘Twas ne’er falsehoods. The love of thy family and loyal subjects wast true, as wast his love f’r thee.” The Megan then drew the sword on her hip and held it high above her head, and Calyx knew without asking what it was. “Sunburst did fulfil his gage to thee and hath found Rosegard’n.”

“For all the good it does for me now.”

“Calyx….”

“Don’t call me that! I’m no longer Queen Calyx!” She took another look at the unrecognizable creature in the water’s reflection. “According to you, I never was Queen Calyx!” She then recalled her own studies into insect biology so, so long ago in a more innocent time. “I am trapped in an endless metamorphosis, an eternal chrysalis! That sword offers me nothing!”

The Megan just looked at her sadly. “Mine apologies, child. ‘Tis all I can offer thee.”

“So let me have it then!”

With that, Chrysalis leapt forward, her fangs bared, and the Megan raised the blade that Calyx had been promised in defense. That was when Chrysalis awoke in her bed, sweating and panting.

It took her a while to remember where she was. She was in her bedroom, formerly the spare office in Celestia’s townhouse. The digital clock at her bedside told her it was three in the morning, and Chrysalis sat there in her bed for a few minutes, trembling as she tried to catch her breath. She felt so disoriented, that for a moment she forgot that what she’d just seen wasn’t how she turned from Crisalide to Chrysalis.

Chrysalis got out of bed and shambled her way to the bathroom, where she turned on the tap to try and clean some of the sticky sweat from her face. The dream felt so real, and even now, well after she’d awakened it was still clear in her mind, with none of the vague fuzziness that came with wakefulness. She hadn’t had a nightmare in weeks, and certainly never one like that. Where did it come from, and what did it mean? Maybe she’d have to talk to Luna about it again.

It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps the reason it didn’t feel like a dream was because it felt like something else: a memory. But whose memory? It certainly wasn’t hers.

It was then that Chrysalis’s hairs stood on end, and she felt the familiar sensation of being watched. She’d felt it a few times before when she was alone, hadn’t she? Yes, she remembered a number of times when she could swear the person she saw in the mirror was more than just her reflection.

Chrysalis turned the faucet off, closed her eyes and said quietly, “Okay, no more games. Whoever you are, I know you’re here.”

At first, silence was her only answer. But then she heard a voice in her mind so clearly that she could almost hear it reverberating off the bathroom walls.

“I was wondering when you’d finally take notice of me.”

Chrysalis opened her eyes and stared at the mirror’s reflection dead in the face. But her reflection was smirking at her, and what was more, she looked like how Chrysalis looked without her guise. A black chitinous horn extended from her forehead, spreading to the rest of the skin around it. Chrysalis lifted her right arm, and her reflection mimicked. Only, Chrysalis still had five human fingers, while her reflection still sported a black hoof full of holes.

Forcing down the cold fear in her chest, Chrysalis asked, “Who are you?”

“The real question is, who are you?” Her reflection said, still grinning that Cheshire grin. “You who have taken everything from me. My life. My body. Even my name.”

Her heart beating faster, Chrysalis said, “I don’t understand.”

“Foolish child. I am Queen Chrysalis!”

Chapter 7 - Inner Demons

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This was always the worst part: the anticipation. The Rose had become intimately familiar with pain ever since she had ended up in the cruel clutches of the black unicorn. As horrible as his attentions always were, even worse were the minutes leading up to the next time he grew bored enough to use her body as a plaything. The anticipation this time was arguably worse, and the black unicorn wasn’t even present.

The black unicorn’s seeming right hand—another one of these strange horse-like creatures who called herself Mangle-leg—led the Rose down into the dungeons on her king’s orders. Under the influence of what that wicked creature called “the Compulsion”, the Rose had no choice but to obey. She followed Mangle-leg through dark, dank corridors that stank of death and echoed with the lamentations of the poor souls who—like her—were trapped here. It made the Rose think of Hell.

They passed silent and terrified creatures in cages, and they were so emaciated the Rose did not even recognize them as ponies right away. A torture rack sat just to the side in her peripheral vision, stained with fresh blood. Next, they passed through a room lined with simple beds, about half of which were occupied. Said occupants were chained so tightly they could barely move, though that didn’t stop them from trying. More than one writhed and screamed, and the Rose took note of their bodies with growing dread. Their skin had been flayed and here and there replaced with some sort of black chitin.

Mangle-leg had stopped at one of the beds, and Rose could only watch—a passenger in her own body—as she surveyed its occupant. The pony in this bed was still breathing, but that was the only indication he was even alive. It wasn’t just his skin that had been replaced with patchwork black material. Two of his limbs appeared to have been replaced with black, hole-filled appendages. Worse, they appeared to be rotting away, turning an unnatural greenish white and dripping ichor. The Rose thought she could see something tiny wriggling around inside the holes.

“Kill me…kill me…” the pony begged as Mangle-leg inspected him.

“Rate of decay appears to have increased in Subject Six,” Mangle-leg muttered, quickly jotting down notes with the quill and ink set on the nearby table. She either didn’t hear the pony’s pleas or was merely ignoring them. “It would appear that the body has once again rejected the transplants. Will continue observation on Subject Six for another two days and then commence disposal.”

“Kill me…” the pony said again, this time not looking at Mangle-leg, but at the Rose.

She didn’t have time to dwell on him, because Mangle-leg was already moving on, and Rose’s body followed. A tidal wave of fear washed over her as they came to a room with a pair of tables, a raised basin filled with water and shelves with a number of tools and implements she could not identify. What appeared to be blood stained the floor around both tables, one of which was empty and the other which had something on it covered by a tarp. Next to the empty table was a tray lined with a number of sharp tools.

“Here we are, then,” Mangle-leg said. “Strip and lie down on the table. Once I wash up, we’ll begin.”

Her body obeyed of its own accord. Now, here she lay naked on the table, strapped down too tightly to move even if she were in control of her own body. She was able to turn her head though, and she realized that this latest dose of Compulsion was beginning to wear off as she started to look around the room, her breath quickening with anxiety.

Mangle-leg removed the tarp from the table next to her, and what the Rose saw was a horror she couldn’t quite process. Whatever in God’s creation had made such a creature—she was no longer sure she was in the reach of God any further—was dead, its green serpentine eyes wide open and lifeless. Long, mangy cerulean hair framed its face, and a black chitinous horn matching its body protruded from its forehead. Its skin was the same black texture as what was grafted to those still screaming souls chained to the beds in the next room. The Rose knew what was about to happen to her, and a soft whimper escaped her throat—another sign the Compulsion was wearing off.

It was then that the shadows in the room began to twist and move, and the Rose’s terror doubled. She knew that he was here now. Soon, the shadows materialized into a horrifically all-too-familiar form, and standing in the room now was the black unicorn in all of his terrible glory.

Mangle-leg turned around and bowed without hesitation. “My king, I am honored by your presence.”

King Sombra nodded, gesturing for her to rise. “I see you are nearly ready to commence the experiment.”

“Yes, it is my hypothesis that the human’s body should be more receptive to the changeling grafts. Furthermore, using the body of a queen instead of mere drones should yield better results,” Mangle-leg explained, going on to elaborate more on her planned procedure using a lot of words the Rose didn’t understand.

The Rose. That was her name as the black unicorn’s slave; the life she had before seemed so vastly distant now that she could barely remember who she used to be. Then she looked at King Sombra’s face, and alongside the crippling fear and despair another emotion rose to join them. It was raw, seething hatred and with it came the clarity of mind to remember her real name.

Crisalide, she thought, glaring at King Sombra as he finally took notice of her. My name is Crisalide della Lucca and you will remember it when I return all the pain you have given me!

Subconsciously, Crisalide’s hands curled into fists, and seeing this, King Sombra frowned. “I believe she needs another dose of Compulsion, doctor.”

Pulling back Crisalide’s eyelids to inspect her pupils, Mangle-leg nodded. “Interesting, that dose wore off quicker than normal. Perhaps my apprentices provided me with a bad batch. I will administer another dose and look into it later, sire—no need for this...thing...to think on its own.”

Going to one of the shelves lining the wall, Mangle-leg quickly retrieved a vial of liquid and brought it to Crisalide. Covering her nose so Crisalide had no choice but to open her mouth, Mangle-leg forced the liquid down her throat. Crisalide knew better than to struggle after so many times, and very soon her body went limp, her restrained limbs no longer obeying her commands.

“Now, I know you requested more sedatives for your procedures, but I decided they would be better served on the front lines,” Sombra said, speaking to Mangle-leg but staring right into his pet Rose’s eyes. She could feel his hoof caress her face in the mockery of a lover’s touch. “I believe my Rose has the strength to endure the operation without it.” He then smiled a cruel smile. “It will be exceptionally painful, but what mare hasn’t suffered for the sake of beauty?”

Sombra let go of her face roughly and her head lolled to the side, once again putting the creature on the other table at the center of her gaze. The queen, Mangle-leg had called it...but a queen of what? It looked as if it ruled no kingdom, and it didn’t even look as if it were a queen of cats, as the term sometimes went back home. Either way, it did not look particularly royal now, but as Crisalide locked eyes with it, she felt something odd: even though it was clearly dead, Crisalide almost felt still living intelligence behind those green eyes. They were beautiful in their own way, and something about them actually gave her a modicum of comfort as Mangle-leg picked her tools from the nearby tray and got to work.

Mangle-leg hummed to herself as she commenced the operation, methodically cutting through flesh and sinew and sawing through bone. The pain was excruciating. Unbearable and constant. In those long hours, the pain comprised Crisalide’s entire world. It was like she was transported to another realm, where nothing existed but her agony. It was, for lack of a better word, Hell.

“Chrys….”

Tears streamed down her face, and Crisalide wanted to scream, but the Compulsion’s hold on her body was so tight that she could not make a sound. So Crisalide just lay there in her prison of agony as she looked into the eyes of the Queen; the closest thing to a friend she had in this terrible nightmare.

“Chrysalis, it’s okay….”

Her throat felt raw, which didn’t make sense because she still could not scream, but God knows she was trying.

“Chrysalis!”

Except she was screaming, Chrysalis realized. She was in bed, sweating through her blankets. Her arms, suddenly free of the Compulsion, flailing desperately to fight her way out of the nightmare. Still screaming, she struck true and felt her fist connect with something soft and alive.

“OW! Chrysalis, CHRYSALIS! You’re okay!”

Chrysalis felt a pair of hands grab her wrists and hold them softly but firmly to stop her mad flailing. Her eyes adjusting to the dark, Chrysalis found herself looking into soft lilac eyes fraught with worry.

“It’s okay, Chrys. You were just having a nightmare,” Celestia said softly. She was sitting on the edge of Chrysalis’s bed just beside her wearing her pajamas, her face betraying utter heartbreak. At the door’s edge, silent but no less present, stood Sable, as if there to be a living shield for her. Chrysalis realized all at once that her screaming must have woken them up again, and she wondered what time it was.

“I…I’m sorry I-I….” Chrysalis couldn’t even finish her thought before she started sobbing violently, hugging her knees to her chest and burying her face in them.

She felt Celestia put her arms around her and hold her close, and rather than flinch away from the touch Chrysalis melted into it. At least she was making progress on that front.

“I know, I know, it’s okay. You’re safe,” Celestia whispered, holding her tight.

They stayed like that for a while, with Celestia holding Chrysalis while she cried her way through processing the trauma she had just so viscerally re-lived.

“That’s three nights in a row you’ve been having nightmares now,” Celestia said, brushing some of the hair out of Chrysalis’s face. “I don’t understand. You seemed to be getting better these past few weeks. Did something happen that would have triggered these nightmares?”

More like someone happened, Chrysalis thought, but didn’t say. She had decided not to tell them about her encounter with her false reflection a few nights ago. Chrysalis herself was still trying to wrap her mind around it, and it wasn’t like there was anything Celestia could have done to help anyways. No sense in making her worry any more than she already was.

“I don’t know,” Chrysalis just said.

“Well, a friend of mine—not Velvet—has a private therapy practice specializing in children dealing with trauma,” Celestia said. “I can call her in the morning and try to schedule an appointment.”

Chrysalis doubted that therapy was going to work for her particular situation, but nodded and said, “Okay.”

“Want me to get you some water?”

Her throat hurt from all of her apparent screaming, so Chrysalis nodded again and Sable left to get her water while Celestia continued to hold her.

As she sat there in the embrace, an idea came to Chrysalis. A therapist may not be able to help her, but she could think of one person who could. She elected to text her first thing in the morning; no sense in waking her now.

With that settled, Chrysalis’s mind once again went back to the night she first saw her dark reflection.

Chrysalis stood over the bathroom sink, looking in the mirror at the thing grinning back at her. It wore her face—the real one hidden behind her guise—and had just introduced itself with her name: Queen Chrysalis.

“I’m still dreaming,” Chrysalis muttered, closing her eyes as she tried to shake the cobwebs from her head.

“Oh, I assure you this is no dream,” the other said, and sure enough, Chrysalis opened her eyes to see her still there, gazing out at her through the bathroom mirror. “I’m as real as you are.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. How long have you been here?”

“I’ve been with you since the beginning. Since King Sombra’s mad scientist first grafted our bodies together.”

Chrysalis looked down at her hand, and then at the matching black chitinous hoof in the mirror. She had a pretty good idea about who this entity was, but that last statement confirmed it. Still, it just didn’t make sense.

“How could you be the original changeling queen from Mangle-leg’s experiments?” Chrysalis asked. “That creature was long dead when the surgery took place.”

“I told you my name, I expect you to use it—you’re already using it for yourself, after all!”

“News flash: Crisalide means Chrysalis in English!” She wisely left out that in older Italian dialects it referred to butterflies and moths in general, not the pupae stage. “I haven’t stolen your name, and I certainly didn’t ask for your body to be merged with mine!”

Regardless, Queen huffed in the mirror and continued.

“Well, to answer your question, the changeling hive mind is more than just a neural network for our kind to communicate,” the dead queen explained. “It also acts as data storage for the hive, not unlike the digital storage of computers in this world. Our culture, our history; all is stored in the records of the hive mind: including the minds of all who were a part of it.

“As queen, I should have been reborn in the body of one of my remaining drones after my death, but then Mangle-leg fused our bodies together, giving my original body life enough for my mind to seek it out. By the time I realized what went wrong, I was trapped. A passenger in my own body. I’m sure you can relate.”

Chrysalis pushed aside the horrible memories of being under the effect of the Compulsion. They would not serve her now. “If you’ve been with me all these years, why have you waited until now to reveal yourself?”

“The short answer is: I simply haven’t needed to until now,” the queen said.

“‘Until now,’ huh? What the hell do you want, anyway?” Chrysalis asked coldly.

Queen tsked and shook her head. “Such hostility. Is this the thanks I get for all I’ve done for you over the centuries?”

Chrysalis tilted her head. “All you’ve done for me?”

Her reflection mirrored Chrysalis’s head tilt, but the cruel smile on the queen’s face made the gesture seem almost mocking. “Saving your life, for starters,” she said. “When Sombra tossed our broken body into the molten metal of his forges, you had resigned yourself to death. Welcomed it, in fact. So, I took the reins and cast the cooling spell that saved us. I didn’t have to, you know. I could just as easily have let you die, while I would have been reborn from the hive mind’s annals in a body of my own.

“But I could feel the hatred in you. Your yearning for revenge. It was powerful. I wanted to see what you could do, and you didn’t disappoint. Under my guidance, you brought about a golden age for the changelings! We were powerful! We were feared!

“But then…you started to slip. You saw that prophecy of Sombra’s on that mirror and all of a sudden it was like you were just going through the motions. You bungled the takeover of Canterlot entirely, and then you became so single-minded in your pursuit of those Scions from the prophecy, you didn’t even notice how much of the hive was slipping out of our control. I must admit, I really regretted being in the passenger seat then.”

“So that’s what you want? To take back control of my body?” Chrysalis asked the queen. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but you can’t have it. I’m using it.”

“Hardly,” the queen muttered before addressing her much more directly. “But no, I don’t want to take control of my body from you, Crisalide. The two of us have accomplished far more together than we ever could have apart!” Brushing aside some of the stringy hair from her face, Queen gave Chrysalis an imploring look. “Despite our misgivings, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones if you’ll cooperate with me just like you have before. We have a lot of work to do: a hive to reclaim, for starters. After that, the world’s our oyster! Both of them, even!”

“Yeah, that’s a hard pass,” Chrysalis said, growing weary of this conversation. “I have my own life now, so do me a favor and stay out of it!”

“You call this a life?” Queen sneered. “I mean, just look at you. You were an immortal queen, once. Now, you’re…what? Going to school and making friends with little snot-nosed brats? Going on cute dates? Come now, we’re meant for greater things, Crisalide!”

“Yeah? Well too bad. I’m not going back to that life. This is my home now!” Chrysalis exclaimed, turning her back on the mirror and exiting the bathroom.

But the queen’s voice followed her out into the hall, still sounding like she was right next to her. “You can’t run from your destiny so easily, Crisalide! I wanted to work with you on this like before, but if you’re going to be stubborn, there are ways I can make life very unpleasant for you.”

Chrysalis’s veins went ice cold then. It wasn’t just the queen’s voice she could sense, but also her feelings and intentions. Queen was dead serious.

She could almost see the queen’s smile in her mind’s eye as she said, “Perhaps a few nights without sleep will get you to see things my way.”

Hours before Chrysalis would have her first conversation with the dead changeling queen in her head, a much louder and more heated “discussion” was taking place at a dining room table in one of the fancier homes in upper San Palomino.

“WHAT I INVEST IN WITH MY COMPANY ISN’T ANY OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS!”

“IT IS MY FUCKING BUSINESS WHEN OUR FAMILY’S LIVELIHOOD IS AT STAKE….”

“OH, CUT THE BULLSHIT! YOU JUST CAN’T STAND NOT BEING IN CONTROL….”

“…AND YOU HAVE AN ESTABLISHED PATTERN OF MAKING POOR INVESTMENTS!”

“…OF EVERY FACET OF OUR LIVES TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN!”

Once again Diamond Tiara found herself in the position of a non-combatant caught up in the middle of an all-out war. The kind of nameless soul who would be referred to as “collateral damage” in the news coverage after the fact. She sighed: she’d already put in her earbuds and had started listening to whatever the iTunes shuffle gods would send her the moment she sensed escalation in her parents’ dinnertime talk. It was something she’d developed a keen sense for in recent years. Now though, the dulcet tones of Midnight Moondust were not enough to drown out her parents’ voices. So, Diamond did what any sensible civilian would do in the middle of an armed conflict and made her retreat, taking her plate of dinner with her.

Diamond already knew how this particular battle was going to end, having been a veteran of so many like it. Her father would go and sulk in his home office, where he would remain for the duration of the night, and her mother would open up a bottle (or two) of wine that she’d finish off in a short hour. Diamond’s parents didn’t even seem to notice her leaving the room, which was fine by her. They didn’t pay her much attention at all these days, unless it was to lecture her poor grades and whatever other ways she was a disappointment. Her mother still hadn’t forgiven her for not scoring high enough to get into Zacherle.

She shut the door to her bedroom and finished off her dinner seated at her vanity table. She then sat back against the headboard of her bed, computer in her lap and her stuffed dog Wolfy under her arm. More than once her mother had insisted that she throw the stuffed toy out, telling Diamond that she was getting too old for “kids’ stuff.” Diamond didn’t care much for kids’ stuff herself and had donated most of her old toys on her mother’s suggestion, but just couldn’t bring herself to get rid of Wolfy.

Wolfy had been her mother’s gift to her on the first birthday she could remember and had been her favorite toy ever since. The stuffed toy was worn out over the years and clashed horribly with Diamond’s pristine room of whites and pinks, but she still held it close every night. As silly as it seemed, it made her feel safe. Reminded her of a simpler time when her mother and father still tucked her in and kissed her goodnight. A time when her every desire wasn’t measured by how it would benefit her future.

Diamond’s little nostalgia trip was interrupted by the telltale jingle of an incoming Zoom call, and to her mild surprise it was Cozy Glow calling her. She was almost never the one to start a call.

“Heya Cozy,” Diamond said, making sure to place Wolfy out of frame before turning on her camera. She had an image to maintain, after all—even to her friends.

“Hiya, Di!” Cozy said with a big, sweet smile. “Wanna see something interesting?”

Mildly confused, but a little intrigued, Diamond said, “Sure.”

“Okay, I put a link to my Cloud in chat,” Cozy said, and Diamond went looking for it as she continued, “When I was out on a date at Scoops today, I ran into a very nice little boy with something very interesting on his camera!”

Diamond opened Cozy’s link and pressed play on the video she saw there. When she saw the massive wolf, her eyes flicked over to the stuffed toy at her side. Then the wolf in the video changed, and Diamond realized why Cozy was showing her this.

“Is that…?”

“Chrysalis? Looks like it,” Cozy said.

Diamond played the video again, trying to make sense of it. The rational part of her mind wanted to explain it away as special effects, but deep down she knew it was more than that. Because she’d seen Chrysalis transform herself, hadn’t she? Diamond’s hand again reached up and touched her throat when she remembered her last conversation with the girl weeks ago. The memory had haunted her ever since, both because of what Chrysalis had said and what Diamond had glimpsed. The fangs Chrysalis had borne hadn’t been there before, of that Diamond was certain. And what she’d said to her rang true.

I’ve taken lives before…. Killing you right now would barely even require any effort.

Diamond could no longer lie to herself: the girl terrified her. Yet, whenever she pondered how she would get revenge for her humiliation, a different kind of feeling clenched her throat. She remembered coming home the day she’d first befriended Chrysalis, actually smiling when she told her mom, “I made a new friend today!”

But her mother had taught her years ago that in her position—as the princess of a billion-dollar corporate empire—she had to be careful about who she made friends with. Her “friendship” with Apple Bloom had been a cold but necessary wakeup call.

So, Diamond’s mother had replied to her saying, “Who is this new friend, and how do you plan to gain from them?”

For a brief moment, Diamond’s knee-jerk instinct had been to lash out at her mother. To ask her, “Why can’t I just be her friend because I like her?!”

Fortunately, Diamond had enough self-control to quash that instinct before the words could leave her lips. Her mother had already appeared to be in a bad mood, so Diamond had instead explained her plan to use Chrysalis to get close to Sunset Shimmer. Her mother had simply “hmphed,” but apparently found it acceptable as she hadn’t pushed any farther on the subject.

Even now, Diamond didn’t know why her first instinct had been to defend Chrysalis to her mother, and she certainly didn’t understand why that memory kept coming back whenever she contemplated what to do about her. If Chrysalis really was a monster like Diamond suspected (especially now that she had video proof), she shouldn’t be feeling so torn.

“So Di, do you think you can use it?” Cozy Glow’s voice brought Diamond back to the present.

“Don’t know. It honestly looks like nothing. Probably that kid’s home movie special effects project, or something,” Diamond said, not believing her own words. “There’s no such thing as monsters.”

“If you say so,” Cozy said with a shrug. “I’ll keep it in the Cloud. Just in case you change your mind!”

“Chrys. Hey!”

Scootaloo’s voice, combined with the sharp jostling of her shoulder brought Chrysalis out of the dreamless trance she’d been in: not quite asleep, but not entirely awake. Trying to blink some clarity back into her eyes, Chrysalis looked around, her foggy mind trying to remember where she was. She was in Ms. Fossil’s history class, which meant it must have been Tuesday morning.

Standing over her was Scootaloo, who looked at her with mild concern. “You coming? Class is over.”

Chrysalis cursed. She didn’t remember a single thing they’d covered that class. “Can I borrow your notes from today?” Chrysalis asked, her voice sounding hoarse in her ears.

“Yeah dude, of course.”

“Thanks,” Chrysalis said, taking the offered sheets of paper from Scootaloo’s hand as she stood from her desk.

As she exited the classroom with Scootaloo, it occurred to Chrysalis that the two of them had completely swapped roles from her first day in this very class. Instead of Chrysalis helping out an over-tired Scootaloo who was dead to the world, it was the other way around. The thought wasn’t as amusing as she thought it should be.

Feeling like a drained husk, Chrysalis drifted through the halls of the school like a zombie or something similarly half-dead. She was so tired, but with sleep came nightmares, which in turn broke up her sleep. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on like this.

You don’t have to keep going on like this, said the voice in her head, and Chrysalis wasn’t sure if it was really Queen or just her own subconscious. Just do what I say and you’ll be able to rest again.

Whatever the true source of the thoughts was, Chrysalis forced herself to ignore them. She would be seeing Sunset Shimmer after school today, and she’d surely know a way to fix this.

“AAH!” Chrysalis heard somebody shout as she walked right into something she belatedly realized was a person. She squinted her eyes, forcing them to focus on the form of Vice Principal Neighsay. Right away, Chrysalis noticed two things. First, that the vice principal was lecturing her in a raised voice, and two, that his maroon suit jacket was stained with fresh coffee from the thermos in his hand.

“…you need to pay more attention. Just because you’re familiar with the principal and your guardian is the superintendent does not mean you can just drift through school with your head in the clouds!” Neighsay exclaimed, trying desperately to wipe down his stained jacket with a tissue he’d pulled out of his pocket. “What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?”

“Ugh, who does this fool think he is to lecture us?” There was no question that this voice in her mind was Queen. The entity she shared a mind with had become far more talkative throughout her daily life ever since she first made herself known three nights ago, and it was driving Chrysalis insane as much as her sleep deprivation was. “The old Queen Chrysalis would have struck him down where he stands! Come on, Chrys. I know that killer instinct is still in here somewhere!”

“Shut up shut up SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Neighsay stared at her with wide-eyed disbelief. “What did you just say to me?!”

Chrysalis suddenly felt more awake than she had in days. “N-no, wait! I wasn’t talking to you I was….”

“Detention, Ms. Chrysalis. My office, after school,” said Neighsay, visibly containing his fury as much as he could as he brushed past Chrysalis and continued on his way.

Chrysalis clenched her fists hard, resisting the overwhelming urge to punch the locker beside her and scream out all of her rage and frustration. What ultimately kept her restrained was the thought of the entity in her mind hoping for her to do exactly that: to keep alienating the people around her.

“I’m sure you loved that, didn’t you?” she muttered.

“Chrys?”

She looked over to see not only Scootaloo standing at her side, but Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle as well. She wasn’t sure how long exactly they’d been there.

“Is something wrong?” Apple Bloom asked. “You’ve been acting funny since yesterday.”

“And you look like shit,” Scootaloo said as tactlessly as ever. It was a fair point.

“Really, Scoots?” Sweetie Belle drolled.

“No, that’s fair,” Chrysalis said. “I probably look about as good as I feel.”

Apple Bloom put a hand on her shoulder. “Seriously, what’s going on with you?”

Chrysalis opened her mouth to create some excuse. Or just insist that everything was fine.

“Yes, that’s it. Just lie right to their faces,” the Queen said. “That is what your entire ‘friendship’ is built on, after all.”

Chrysalis ignored her this time and said, “I think I’m losing my goddamn mind and I just…” she buried her face in her hand and sighed. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do….”

The bell for the next period classes rang, but none of her friends rushed to get there.

“Well, just talk us through it. Maybe we can help,” Sweetie said.

Chrysalis told them as much as she could about the nightmares and sleepless nights without getting into any of the magical changeling stuff.

After she finished, she added, “I’m seeing a friend today who should be able to help. And if that doesn’t work, my mom scheduled a therapist appointment for me tomorrow after school.” She then tried her hardest to give her friends a smile. “I’ll be okay, really.”

Her friends didn’t look convinced. “Okay, if you say so,” Apple Bloom said.

She then said, “See you later,” to her friends as she made her way to her math class, already knowing she would get in trouble for being late but not particularly caring: she already had detention today anyway.

Another unusual change from the previous week had once again presented itself at lunch later in the day. Starting that week, whenever Chrysalis happened to meet Diamond Tiara’s eyes in the cafeteria, something about her former friend’s behavior toward her seemed somehow different. Previously, when Chrysalis and Diamond would lock eyes, all it took was a good glare from Chrysalis to make the girl shrink away. Only when Diamond believed Chrysalis was no longer paying attention to her would she level a scornful glare her way.

But ever since Monday, Diamond Tiara’s hateful stares no longer held such intensity. Instead, Diamond simply regarded her the way a person might look at a math problem on the page in front of them. Chrysalis didn’t know what had changed, but she could see the gears turning in Diamond’s head, and she had the sneaking suspicion that the problem she was trying to solve was Chrysalis herself. It was mildly unsettling, but Chrysalis decided it was best to ignore her. She had a problem of her own that she was focused on solving.

That problem smiled and waved to her from another table. None of the other kids noticed the misshapen form of the changeling queen sitting among them, but Chrysalis could see her, despite her features being fuzzy and unfocused. Chrysalis felt like she still had one foot in a dream, and she did her best to ignore the queen, dismissing her as exactly that.

She tried to turn her attention to the notes from class Scootaloo had lent her, but no matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t make sense of them. It was like her brain had simply stopped being capable of reading words on a page, so desperate it was for sleep. Chrysalis shut her eyes and pounded her head with her fist a few times, but when she opened her eyes again the words on the page in front of her were still fuzzy scribbles.

“Having trouble reading Scootaloo’s notes?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Yeah, I guess I’m more exhausted than I thought,” Chrysalis said.

“Oh, trust me, that has nothing to do with you being sleep-deprived. I don’t think there’s a soul alive who can read Scootaloo’s chickenscratch.”

In spite of everything, Chrysalis laughed.

Thanks to her detention with Mr. Neighsay, Chrysalis didn’t arrive at Sunset Shimmer’s manor until a little later in the afternoon than she had wanted, but Sunset assured her that it was no trouble. Now, Chrysalis lay on the couch in Sunset’s living room, staring at the ceiling like a stereotypical patient in a therapy session. It was good practice for tomorrow, Chrysalis supposed, but what she was doing now was a very different sort of therapy.

Sunset Shimmer knelt beside her; her hand alight with arcane power as she placed it on Chrysalis’s forehead. As Sunset had instructed, Chrysalis lay still and cleared her mind as best she could. She wasn’t sure how long they had stayed like that before Sunset removed her hand and indicated that it was okay for Chrysalis to sit up.

“Well?” she asked, a touch hopeful.

Sunset sighed. “The mental scan I just did was very thorough…but ultimately found no trace of another entity or any kind of foreign magic, for that matter.”

Chrysalis felt a cold pit in her stomach open up. “But…how can that be?” A rather disturbing thought occurred to her. “You don’t think that I’m just…going crazy, do you? That there really isn’t a dead changeling queen occupying my mind and it’s just something my fucked up, traumatized brain conjured up on its own?”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” said the voice in her head

As expected, Sunset answered like she hadn’t heard it. “I mean this in the best possible way, Chrys, but…maybe don’t rule that option out just yet.”

“I don’t know Sunny, I think there really is some entity living in her brain,” Octavia said. Both she and Twilight were in the room too, both of them too concerned for Chrysalis to be kept out. “I hardly need to remind you that Melody managed to elude you the entire time she was trapped in my mind.”

“Exactly, and I know firsthand how much damage nightmares from a magical source can do,” Twilight said, looking at Chrysalis. The girl’s sympathetic gaze was haunted by memories of such a horrible period of her life. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

“There must be something more you can do,” Chrysalis said, looking to Sunset, trying to keep her voice calm even as she was all but pleading. “Something as powerful as a changeling queen would have to leave some trace of itself if it really is in my mind.”

“Oh, you flatter me, Crisalide.”

“Well, if I probe any deeper I could actually be doing more harm than good,” Sunset explained. Seeing that Octavia was about to protest, Sunset added, “Yes, I know now that I wasn’t the one who broke your mind in half when I tried to flush the Vibe out of your system, Tavi. But the fact that she only appeared after then means that I probably still woke her up.”

The queen chuckled. “You see? Even she can’t help you. The sooner you come to terms with your destiny, the easier this will be for both of us.”

“Yeah, but this changeling queen is already very much awake, and won’t SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Chrysalis looked anxiously at Sunset and the others. “Sorry.”

“I know you’re frustrated, Chrys, but I’m doing everything I can,” Sunset said. “The fact is changeling magic is just too much of an unknown factor even for someone as powerful as me.”

Chrysalis figured she must have looked pretty pathetic in that moment, because Sunset immediately put an arm around her and said, “Hey, I haven’t given up yet, okay? I’m going to contact Twilight and see if she can dig anything up on her end. In the meantime, you’re just going to have to hang in there. I can throw up some protective enchantments designed to protect your mind, but considering I couldn’t detect anything in the first place, I don’t know if that’ll even work. I’m sorry, I know that isn’t what you wanted to hear.”

“No, it’s okay,” Chrysalis mumbled. “Thank you.”

“Also, if the therapist you’re seeing tomorrow prescribes you medication, it might actually help. It did for me,” Octavia said. “The meds made me feel like shit, but they were able to keep Melody quiet. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for you too.”

That made Chrysalis feel a little better. “Couldn’t hurt.”

Of course, Chrysalis realized she was going to have to come up with something to tell the therapist she was seeing tomorrow. She certainly couldn’t tell them the truth. Either way, she still needed to get through another night first.

As Chrysalis undressed in her room to go to sleep for the night, she caught a glimpse of her body in the mirror atop her dresser. Once again, her reflection resembled her true mismatched body under the guise she always kept up, and a quick glance down at her own body at least confirmed that it was still up. Once again, she felt the eyes of the queen slithering up and down her form and Chrysalis hastily turned away.

“Come now, Crisalide. When are you going to stop running from yourself?”

“I’m not running,” Chrysalis spat.

“Yes you are. You’ve been running ever since you went back through the portal.”

Chrysalis chose not to dignify that with a response.

“Oh? Care to prove me wrong? Then turn around and take a good, hard look at yourself.”

Sighing, Chrysalis turned and faced the mirror. Anything to get the bitch in her head to stop talking. Her reflection once again showed nothing more than an ordinary teenage girl in nothing but her underwear. The version of herself she wanted to be. The version she knew was a lie. So, knowing what the queen wanted from her, she focused on her changeling powers and allowed their green flames to wash over her, revealing her true form.

It was the first time in millennia that Chrysalis had really looked at her nearly naked body as it really was. She looked hard at the hooves that made up her left arm and right leg. At the rotted scars and dead flesh where black chitin met pasty skin. At the sickly green carapace of her midsection, from which spread more black chitin over her left hip and right breast. At the pockmarked gossamer wings from her back and the bent horn from her head. She imagined this was how Frankenstein’s monster would have looked had the effects not been limited by the technology of their time.

“See?” said the queen, appearing behind Chrysalis in the mirror as a second monster. Chrysalis knew that there wasn’t really anybody behind her but could still feel the queen’s hand on her shoulder. “Is the real you truly so hard to accept?”

Chrysalis brushed the hand that wasn’t there off her shoulder, changing back to normal. “I’m going to bed now.”

“Of course,” the queen said with a smirk. “Pleasant dreams.”

As expected, they were anything but. Chrysalis was out nearly the second her head hit her pillow. From there, the waking world became a distant dream, and the world of dreams became her reality.

She waited patiently in a cave dimly lit with bioluminescent crystal beneath the shining capital of Equestria. The wheels of her plan were turning. The three bridesmares whose minds she’d enchanted will have laid her trap by now. All Chrysalis needed to do was wait. She didn’t need to wait long. In a flash of green spellfire, her target fell in a pink heap to the cave floor at Chrysalis’s hooves.

“Well, well. Princess Cadance, I presume,” Chrysalis said with a sneer.

The young alicorn was still disoriented as she climbed to her feet but managed to focus her gaze on Chrysalis. “You...you’re the one who threatened Canterlot!”

“My, aren’t you a sharp one?” Chrysalis teased as Cadance tried to blast her with a beam of pure concentrated magic. Chrysalis deflected it with ease. “Not sharp enough, though.”

As Chrysalis’s changeling intelligence had confirmed, the young princess was ill-trained in combat of any kind, preferring diplomacy and empathy over violence. Chrysalis elected to teach her the error of such folly and hit her with a blast of changeling magic designed to inflict pain. With a cry of anguish, Cadance was knocked off her hooves and sent sprawling to the cave floor. She flung more magic beams at Chrysalis in a desperate bid to buy herself breathing room as she tried to stand again. The attacks were even more telegraphed than her initial spell, and Chrysalis made a show of deflecting them effortlessly.

Cadance hadn’t even managed to regain her footing before Chrysalis struck again, blasting the hapless princess into the cave wall with another beam of changeling magic. Then with lightning speed, she flew straight at the injured princess and pinned her against the wall, her smile as wide as her eyes. This princess had a heart so full of love she alone could probably feed the whole hive for years. Chrysalis’s plan would feed it for all time, however. Still, she saw no reason not to indulge in a little feeding of her own right now. She licked her lips in anticipation as her eyes began their own feast on the meat in front of her.

The young princess’s eyes widened in terror and her horn started to glow again. Rather than the obviously telegraphed attack that Chrysalis had expected, the glow of Cadance’s horn simply grew brighter and brighter until Chrysalis was thrown back from an explosion of raw, unfocused magic. Chrysalis had to admit that she may have gotten a tad overconfident as she hit the cave floor several feet away.

Chrysalis was back up quickly, however, and it didn’t take her long to acquire her target. Rather than try to continue to fight, Cadance had taken to the air and was now frantically searching for an escape. Chrysalis had prepared for this possibility, though. The cavern they were currently in was completely sealed, the only way in or out was through the changeling teleportation spell that she and her thralls had set up.

So, Chrysalis took to the air after Cadance, whose eyes widened when she saw her coming. The princess tried to dive and evade her, but Chrysalis moved to intercept, and the two of them collided in a tangle of limbs and crashed down to the cave floor once again.

Chrysalis wasted no time pinning the alicorn down as she sank her fangs into her neck. Cadance screamed and Chrysalis moaned as she sucked up the raw emotional energy of the alicorn. In that moment of near-intimacy, Chrysalis understood the princess far better than the best changeling intelligence could offer her. Chrysalis drank deep from her feelings of love and adoration for her aunt Celestia, and much more significantly, her husband-to-be. One thing was certain, their upcoming marriage was not merely political.

“Mmm, your love for him is strong!” Chrysalis sighed almost orgasmically. “Pity you can’t use it like I can.”

For a few seconds, Cadance could only lie on the ground beneath her panting helplessly. But she managed to level a spiteful glare up at Chrysalis. “Whatever you’re planning…he’ll stop you!”

At that, Chrysalis laughed a long hearty laugh. “How will he stop me if I’m you?”

Then green flames washed over Chrysalis as she transformed her body, and Cadance recoiled as she found herself looking up at her own face twisted in a cruel smile. The princess must have grasped the full scope of Chrysalis’s plan then, because her horn once again began to glow with magic. But she was significantly weakened both from the beating Chrysalis had given her and the feeding that she had indulged in after. The light of her magic flickered unsteadily. Still, Chrysalis elected not to get overconfident again, so she grabbed Cadance by the mane and forcefully slammed her head against the rock of the cavern floor, snuffing out the light of her horn.

“The smart thing for me to do would be to kill you now,” Chrysalis taunted, looking down at Cadance with her own eyes. “But I’m going to make you wait. After your Shining Armor is nothing more than my plaything. After Princess Celestia is laid low at my feet. After my forces seize your kingdom and reduce your ponies to cattle. After everything that you love is gone, and I have personally drained you dry of all the love you have left. Then I will kill you.”

Chrysalis noticed then that Cadance was sobbing, and in that moment, she felt an unpleasant feeling deep in the pit of her stomach. The sight of this girl pulled from her happy life of wealth and privilege into a world of pain and despair brought back the memory of another life. A person in their right mind would have felt empathy for such a person. Chrysalis only felt disgust.

“I will never be that weak again…” she muttered unconsciously.

She then hit Cadance with another pain spell and fed on her again. She heard the princess’s screams and pleas for mercy but they barely registered.

“Chrys?!”

She needed to be stronger.

“CHRYSALIS, WHAT IN GOD’S NAME ARE YOU DOING?!”

Snapping out of her daze, Chrysalis looked up and locked eyes with the horrified face of Celestia. Except it wasn’t Celestia the alicorn ruler of Equestria. It was Celestia, the human woman whose living room Chrysalis was standing in. Chrysalis looked down at her feet where the bloody broken Cadance lay. Only it wasn’t Cadance the alicorn of love, but the human dressed in a smart business blazer and skirt, now torn and stained red.

“Get the hell away from my niece!” Celestia shouted.

“Wha…how…?” Chrysalis sputtered. She felt disoriented, like she’d just woken from a dream. By the looks of things, she had.

She heard a high-pitched shriek, and she turned to see Sweetie Belle standing there, looking at her with wide, horrified eyes. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo came running at the sound, the two of them regarding Chrysalis with the same horror.

“What the hell? Chrysalis?” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“That’s not Chrysalis. It’s some kind of monster!” Sweetie said, trembling.

“She was always a monster!” Scootaloo said, squaring her shoulders like she was ready to fight. “I can’t believe she was ever our friend!”

“No, girls wait…” Chrysalis tried to say as she raised her hand in a placating gesture. The problem was, her hand was a blood-stained black hoof, and Chrysalis knew right away how she looked to them.

She then heard the sound of the hammer cocking back on a handgun and turned towards the sound. Sable Loam was now standing beside Celestia, looking down the sights of a gun aimed at Chrysalis. He looked at her the way he had when they first met in her base of operations in another life. He looked at her like she was an enemy.

“Step away from Cadance. NOW!” Sable barked.

“Wait, Dad I-I…” was all Chrysalis could say before her throat clenched up.

“We opened our home to you. We opened our hearts!” Celestia cried. “And this is how you thank us?”

Chrysalis’s voice hitched in her throat. “Mom…I-I’m sorry….”

Celestia shook her head and regarded her coldly, like she was a stranger. “You’re no child of mine.”

Chrysalis didn’t think it was possible, but Celestia’s words hurt her worse than any of King Sombra’s tortures ever had. She fell to her knees as her vision swam and sobs wracked her body.

“Look, the monster’s crying!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“As if! Haven’t you ever seen crocodile tears before?” Scootaloo said.

“Exactly,” Sweetie Belle added. “A creature like that isn’t capable of love or friendship.”

“Nor does it deserve it,” Celestia said.

“Best we just put it out of its misery,” Sable said, and again Chrysalis heard the click of his gun’s hammer.

Tears still streaming down her face, Chrysalis sobbed, “Please…please, I can be good. I can be good I can be good I can be good I can be good….”

“No, you can’t.”

Chrysalis looked up and saw the regal form of Sunset Shimmer standing over her. Blinding white light shone behind her, giving her a halo as she looked down on Chrysalis with an unreadable face. She looked like an angel about to pass judgement.

“You are what you are,” Sunset said, her voice unwavering. “It was a mistake to bring you back to this world. A mistake to believe that you were capable of redemption…or worthy of it.”

Sunset raised a hand high over her head, and a ball of flaming energy appeared, growing bigger and brighter. “As the Alicorn of Earth, it is my duty to correct this mistake.”

“Please, no. I can be good!” Chrysalis begged, but her pleas fell on deaf ears.

Sunset brought her hand down, and Chrysalis was consumed by holy fire. She screamed as it burned through flesh, bone, and her very soul. She screamed even as she realized the flames were no more than blankets, and that she was burning in the heat of her own bed. The space heater beside her was still on, Chrysalis having forgotten to turn it off before she fell asleep.

Chrysalis threw the covers off of her sweat-drenched body and hastily corrected that mistake, turning off the space heater. Still shaking and crying, Chrysalis got out of bed and paced uneasily in her room. She didn’t hear any noise from Celestia and Sable’s room, which meant she at least hadn’t been screaming loud enough to wake them. Small comforts.

She then sensed the other presence and didn’t need to look at her dresser’s mirror to know that Queen was there, grinning her smug grin. It was only then that Chrysalis fully woke up and remembered that what she’d just experienced was only a dream. She knew that her friends and family loved her, but for a few horrible moments fresh out of the dream, she’d forgotten.

“Did you really think that lie would make me change my mind?” she asked.

“Was it a lie, though?” the queen asked. “Or is the real lie this life you’ve created for yourself?”

Chrysalis turned to face her reflection, but her reflection was no longer behind the mirror. The queen stood in the room, a few feet away from Chrysalis. She was leaning against the dresser as if she were really in the room with Chrysalis, just like when she’d seen her in the cafeteria at school. Only, up close Chrysalis could tell that the queen just didn’t look right.

Her fuzzy, foggy appearance that Chrysalis had attributed to distance and her own exhausted mind was still there, only now she was up close, and Chrysalis was awake and alert, even if fueled purely by adrenaline from the nightmare. The queen looked somehow unfinished, her features vague and distorted. There was no real way to describe it, Chrysalis thought of the nature of a drawing: The brain recognizes the lines on paper as a person because it knows that’s what’s meant to be depicted, and in a sense auto-completes the image.

But even the best drawing can’t capture the full detail of a living, breathing, flesh and blood person: the brain can’t take the same shortcuts in reality as it does with lines on paper. Yet, that was exactly what Chrysalis appeared to be looking at: a drawing made flesh. Chrysalis could tell she was looking at a person, but the details just weren’t there. The black chitin that made up her skin was inky and black, with gaps of emptiness here and there. She had a mouth but no eyes. An ear on one side of her head but not the other.

It served to drive home to Chrysalis that this queen was not real. At least, not in a tangible sense. And as futile as it might have been, Chrysalis was not willing to let her get the last word. “Just what do you hope to accomplish, anyway? Just fill my dreams with nightmares until I cave and do what you want? Well, guess what? I would literally rather die than go back to drowning in the hive mind again! And where would that leave you, huh?”

The queen shrugged. “It would probably leave me to be reborn from the hive mind’s records in the body of one of my drones. I thought we went over this.”

Something about that didn’t ring true to Chrysalis, and she realized at once that it was because she could sense the queen’s thoughts and feelings just as much as the queen could sense hers. And this time she was bluffing.

“That’s not true and you know it,” Chrysalis said, and for the first time, the queen frowned. “Because we’re not the Queen of the Changelings anymore. If I die, you won’t be reborn from the hive mind’s records! You’ll join them for all eternity!”

The queen gave Chrysalis a hard, uncompromising glare. Gone were the mocking grins and playful tones of her voice. “All the more reason for us to take back our throne!”

Chrysalis just laughed, reveling in the deepening frown on her dark reflection’s face. “Us? What do you mean ‘us?’ This sounds like a ‘you’ problem to me.”

“Is it? How much longer can you go on without a proper night’s sleep, do you suppose?”

Chrysalis turned away from the mirror and headed back to bed. “You can fill my dreams with all the nightmares you want,” she said. “It’s still better than the waking nightmare of being trapped in the hive mind for centuries.”

As Chrysalis climbed into bed, she heard the queen’s voice say, “You think I have been the one giving you these nightmares?” the queen laughed. “Foolish girl. I am not Nightmare Moon. Dreams are not my domain. All I’ve done these past few days was stop dreaming for you.”

Chrysalis thought of the much more pleasant, but very mysterious dreams she’d had the weeks before. The dreams where she’d been a unicorn queen named Calyx. Ever since the changeling queen revealed herself, Chrysalis had suspected where those dreams had come from. Now it was all but confirmed.

“Doesn’t matter. It changes nothing,” Chrysalis said.

“Doesn’t it, though?” the queen asked. She was now sitting at the foot of Chrysalis’s bed, seeming to look out the window. “Think about it. You’d been having these very same nightmares even when I was gone, haven’t you?” The queen turned from the window and looked right at Chrysalis with faintly glowing green eyes that hadn’t been there moments ago. “Face it, you’re broken. You will always be broken, and you’ll never be able to have the kind of life here that you want. Far better that you go back to something more familiar.”

Chrysalis was about to retort when she caught something that her doppelganger said. “What do you mean ‘when you were gone?’” she asked. The queen was suddenly silent, and Chrysalis sensed a sudden anxiety that wasn’t hers. “There was a period of time that you weren’t with me, wasn’t there? Don’t try to deny it, you know I can tell what you’re thinking.”

The queen growled. “Fine, since I still have hope for our future cooperation, I’m going to be honest with you. There was a lengthy period of time when I was not with you. As for where I was exactly, I’m not sure. All I know is, when you went through the mirror portal back in our underground hideout, I ended up in a dark abyss, all alone. I had no concept of time, no body, and what was more, I could feel my mind unraveling. Pieces of myself disappearing into oblivion. At the time, I thought we’d both died.”

Queen recounted all of this with a steady voice and firm expression, but Chrysalis could sense it: whatever had happened deeply unsettled her, even now. “Then, all of a sudden I was back. A passenger in your mind once again. Only this time everything was different. We were in the human world. Had adopted the appearance of a human girl and were living with two caregivers instead of a changeling hive. It took me a while to figure out that it had been weeks since we went through the portal in the Covenant’s base under Equestria.”

Chrysalis tried to figure out what it all meant. If the queen was telling the truth (and Chrysalis could tell that she was), she really had been gone the moment Chrysalis had jumped through the portal and severed her connection to the hive mind. But if that was what happened, what had changed? Why was the queen suddenly back now? Chrysalis decided it didn’t matter. She now knew that she’d managed to get rid of Queen once before. She could find a way to do it again.

Chrysalis wasn’t the only one to have slept uneasily that night. Diamond Tiara awoke the following morning from a rather distressing nightmare she could now barely remember. The only thing she could recall was the crushing pressure of a heavy weight. Diamonds were created from pressure, she remembered with no loss of irony, but the pressure of the dream had been suffocating. It felt like it was slowly killing her.

But by the time she’d gotten dressed and had breakfast, the dream was far from her mind. As it happened, her mother was heading into the office a little bit later than usual today (and judging by the apparent headache she was nursing in spite of the painkillers Diamond saw her down that morning, she guessed another late night of drinking alone was to blame). So, Diamond climbed into the passenger seat of Spoiled Rich’s luxury sedan and the two of them were on their way.

“Tell me, Diamond. Have you dealt with that girl yet?” Spoiled asked after a lengthy silence.

Twiddling her thumbs, Diamond said, “She hasn’t bothered me since that day. I don’t think I….”

“Too right, Diamond. You don’t think!” Spoiled stated.

Diamond suddenly found herself remembering the heavy pressure from her vaguely recalled dream. Except, now she was reasonably sure her mother had been in it.

“I’ve told you a thousand times, you cannot afford to be seen as weak to your peers. Anyone who disrespects you the way this Chrysalis did needs to be put in their place!” Spoiled continued.

Disrespect was a pretty funny way of saying “almost strangled to death.” But Diamond’s mother hadn’t cared when she came home from the mall that day and told her that.

“You need to learn to solve your own problems, Diamond,” her mother had simply said. “I won’t always be there to help you.”

Funny, you’ve hardly ever been there for me at all, Diamond had thought, but kept silent. As she sat there in the passenger seat now, Diamond said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“I have given you ample means to investigate her past. If she’s really the dangerous criminal you believe her to be, you must have found something.”

Diamond had spent days using her mother’s connections to go through Chrysalis’s files, but to no avail. Her criminal record was absolutely spotless, both here and in her home country of Italy. But something was off about her history, though. Diamond had called the owner of the apartment complex Chrysalis and her mother had supposedly lived in Klamath Falls and there was no record of an “Allegra Musica” ever having an apartment there. Still, it wasn’t much to go on. Diamond shook her head.

“Well, find something and use it. I don’t want to have this conversation with you again.”

Spoiled’s tone indicated there would be no further discussion on the matter, so Diamond simply answered, “Yes, Mother,” and that was that.

Diamond did have something she could use, she supposed. Yes, she’d hesitated to use it before, either out of fear for what Chrysalis might do, or out of misguided sentimentality. No wonder her mother thought she was weak!

When they arrived in front of the school, Diamond said goodbye to her mother and stepped out of the car. She must have had a pretty serious expression on her face, because when Silver Spoon saw her, she said, “Whoa, is everything okay, Di?”

“Fine,” said Diamond. “I’m going to deal with Chrysalis. Today.”

Chapter 8 - The Battle

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What promised to be an already difficult day was further complicated by the note. It was waiting for her on her usual desk in her first period class, neatly folded. Chrysalis was handwritten on the surface of the folded paper, the lowercase I dotted with a heart. She thought it might have been a love note at first and sighed. She was finished with dating for a long time. Still, she unfolded it, deciding it couldn’t hurt to read it anyway. Her heart dropped into her stomach when she did.

I know your secret. I have proof. Meet me at the Sugarcube Corner Cafe tonight at 6, or everyone will know what you really are.

“What the fuck…” Chrysalis muttered, looking around.

Students were still filing into the room. In fact, Chrysalis had been one of the first in. The person who wrote the note had to be one of them, right? No one outside of this class would know which desk was hers.

“Well, this is certainly unexpected,” said Queen, her dark doppelganger sitting in the desk beside her, as usual appearing to only have one foot in reality. Except was it just Chrysalis or were Queen’s previously fuzzy features much more defined now? “So, what are you going to do about this? Assuming the ‘secret’ that our mysterious blackmailer is alluding to is the fact that you’re a shapeshifting monster from another dimension, this could be…problematic for us.”

Chrysalis didn’t need to hear Queen’s input right now, so she turned away from her and stared at the note. Chrysalis didn’t know how the hell the author of this note could possibly know what she was, let alone have proof, and for a moment held out hope that there was simply a misunderstanding. But she knew there was no way the note could be referring to anything else other than her true identity.

Unfortunately, Queen was right: if proof got out that she wasn’t entirely human, it would create a pretty big mess of her life. She could probably rely on Sunset Shimmer to mitigate the worst of the damage, but even she wouldn’t be able to fix things entirely if the truth about her reached enough people. Sunset herself had admitted that a problem which revealed her own identity had been publicized, and while thankfully most people believed it to be video effects, all it would take is someone thorough enough to put two and two together. An actual VFX artist, for instance, would probably be able to tell Sunset’s now removed video was more than just that.

What was more, Sunset had mentioned during Chrysalis’s first week on this world that she was looking into the existence of a possible faction of hostile magic users. She had assured Chrysalis that there was probably no danger—that this group, whoever they were, likely weren’t aware of the goings on here in Canterlot. Still, if something like the video of Sunset Shimmer was to get out and expose Chrysalis, what would happen if someone from this mysterious group saw it? The thought of that sent a shiver through Chrysalis’s spine.

“Hey, Chrys,” a boy’s voice said beside her, and where the mental projection of Queen had been sitting moments ago now sat Star Tracker, who looked at her curiously.

The worse damage would be if the truth reached her friends. Her nightmare from last night was still clear in her mind. The looks of horror and disgust on the faces of Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo when they saw what Chrysalis really was still haunted her. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing the first true friends she’d ever had in her millennium of living.

Ignorant of her worries, Star looked at the paper in her hands and asked, “What’ve you got there?”

Chrysalis reflexively crumpled up the paper in her hands, trying to act nonchalant as she replied, “Just some garbage.”

Star seemed to buy it, nor did he seem to notice Chrysalis reach down and slip the crumpled garbage into her backpack. He went on to tell her about some funny article he read the other night about some movie director, but Chrysalis was only half listening. Even as Ms. Fossil began the class, Chrysalis wasn’t focused on the lesson.

Her eyes kept darting around the room, checking the faces of every student present. Most of the students in this class were mere acquaintances. Chrysalis knew all of their names but not much else.

There were three kids in this class that she really knew well. One of them was Star Tracker, of course. The other was Toola Roola, who as usual for the past couple of weeks was notable only by her absence. The third was a fashionable girl with amber hair and purple-rimmed glasses named Zipporwhill. She stood out to Chrysalis for exactly one reason: she often hung out with Silver Spoon in some of their classes together. Zipporwhill wasn’t acting particularly suspicious, quietly taking notes and paying attention to the lesson. But Chrysalis couldn’t think of anyone else who would have left that note on her desk.

When the period bell rang, Chrysalis tried to make herself relax. She knew she was being paranoid. Zipporwhill was a sweet kid from what Chrysalis could garner from the few interactions she had with her. The girl loved dogs more than anything in the world, and only seemed to talk to Silver Spoon to look at pictures of her own dog. In fact, she was the only person from her brief time as Diamond Tiara’s friend that Chrysalis still regularly talked to. Sure, her family might have had some wealth, and she might have had a decent fashion sense, but Zipporwhill simply didn’t fit in with Diamond Tiara’s clique.

When Chrysalis got to her locker to take out her textbooks for her next period, she pulled the ball of paper out of her bag and uncrumpled it to read it through again. The location of the meet up was the SugarcubeCorner. It was the place where Chrysalis had first started to have doubts about her friendship with Diamond Tiara. That had to be significant.

“Mornin’ Chrys,” Apple Bloom’s voice was suddenly right behind her, and Chrysalis quickly put the note away. “What’cha readin’ there?”

“Nothing! Just an assignment. Don’t worry about it!” Chrysalis answered quickly.

Apple Bloom was not as easily fooled as Star Tracker. “You seem awfully defensive over an assignment.”

Chrysalis sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She was too tired for this. “Look, it’s something personal, okay? I don’t want to talk about it.”

With a frown, Apple Bloom shrugged and said, “Okay, you could have just said that.”

It was unspoken, but Chrysalis knew what Apple Bloom meant. You could have just said that instead of lying to my face.

“I’m sorry, Bloomie, it’s just….”

“I know. You’ve been going through a hard time lately,” Apple Bloom said, her face turning sympathetic. “You have your appointment with the therapist this afternoon, right?”

“That’s right,” Chrysalis said, having nearly forgotten her appointment now that the blackmail note was so prevalent in her mind. Her appointment was at 4:30pm, so she’d still have plenty of time to meet with the blackmailer. She’d have to think of something to tell Celestia and Sable, though, especially considering how strict Sable was getting with her curfew.

“Well, I hope it helps,” said Apple Bloom, patting Chrysalis on the shoulder. “I probably sound like a broken record, but you can talk to me and the girls if you need to, okay? About anything.” Her eyes flicked to the locker where Chrysalis had put the note. Chrysalis knew what she meant.

Chrysalis nodded, wishing that were true. Apple Bloom then headed to her next class and Chrysalis closed her locker to do the same.

“Such sweet friends,” Queen said, casually leaning against an adjacent locker with her arms folded. “It’s a shame they’re only your friends because they don’t know the real you.”

Chrysalis just ignored her, something she was getting better at. Her gaze was fixed on the pair of girls down the hall. Zipporwhill was talking cheerfully to Silver Spoon, showing the girl her cell phone, where there was presumably a picture of a cute dog. Silver Spoon grinned and said something to Zipporwhill before walking away. Zipporwhill then noticed Chrysalis staring at her and gave her a smile and a wave, holding up her phone so Chrysalis could see the image of a schnauzer on its back with its tongue lolling out of its mouth. Chrysalis tried to give her a smile back as she watched her go.

Chrysalis decided then that she was going to have a talk with Zipporwhill over the lunch period. She wanted to know definitively who was involved, even if she already had a sneaking suspicion.

A low murmur filled the classroom as all of the freshmen in the science class were doing group work. All of them, save for one. Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and Cozy Glow sat at their table, their lab work all but forgotten.

“I just confirmed that she got your message, and has no way to link it back to us,” Silver Spoon said before asking, “Do you…think she suspects?”

“Of course she suspects, Spoony,” Diamond said. “What matters is she can’t prove anything.” She looked at Cozy. “Is everything ready on your end?”

“Yes indeedy!” Cozy cheerfully exclaimed. “The video’s currently unlisted on YouTube and TikTok, and I’ve got posts on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram standing by.”

“As do I.” Silver frowned and looked at Diamond. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to meet her alone?” she asked, adding in a near whisper, “We all know what she’s capable of!”

“You don’t need to remind me,” Diamond said, clearing her throat for no other reason than to prove that she still could.

“Which is exactly why you need backup. Maybe get Rover and his friends to hang out nearby.”

Diamond let out an exasperated sigh. “I am so tired of dealing with that moron. He’s been far too unreliable lately.”

Plus, if Diamond was being honest with herself, she felt slimy every time she talked to him. It made her think of a person dangling meat just out of reach of a hungry dog, except Diamond herself was the meat, and the dog in question was starting to get wary he was being led on. She’d needed to placate him the last time they spoke by getting a little...frisky with him, and it felt like she was giving a part of herself away.

“I’ll be fine,” Diamond said when she noticed Silver still looked unsure. “Whatever Chrysalis may be, she’s smart. She knows what’s at stake. She won’t try anything.”

“Yeah, what exactly is at stake for her anyway?” Silver asked. “I’ve watched the video, and those were some cheesy special effects. I don’t see why something like that would be damning to her.”

Diamond let out a long sigh. She didn’t want to have to explain it, not even to her closest friend. Perhaps it was because she couldn’t even explain it to herself. “Silver, we’ve been friends for years now. So would it be reasonable to ask for you to just trust me?”

Diamond hoped that would be the end of it, but to her surprise, Silver didn’t back down. “Well, as your friend, I want you to know that I think this is a bad idea.”

“I hate to be a Negative Nelly, but I have to agree with Silvy,” Cozy said. “The fact is, this whole plan of yours is…well, it’s rushed.”

“Noted. Now, if you’re both done…” Diamond started, but to her shock, it was Cozy who shut her down.

“But I’m not done, okay?” she said, her sweet smile becoming just a tad manic. “If you really want to deal with Chrysalis, you have to do it slowly. Methodically. These kinds of things take time to do properly, and you’re moving forward too quickly.”

Diamond knew she was right, of course. The smart thing to do would be to wait until she had more ammo and a fool-proof plan. But she thought of her mother’s stern words when she dropped her off that morning. Thought about what she might say if she were here now.

You need to stop dragging your feet and be decisive, Diamond Tiara. Do you think I got to where I am now without taking any risks?

“It’s too late to turn back now, since she already has my note,” Diamond said, hoping that would be the end of it. She was growing tired of this conversation now.

“But Di, just listen,” Silver pressed on. “You don’t have to….”

“No, YOU LISTEN, SILVER! I’M DOING THIS SO YOU CAN EITHER HELP ME OR SHUT UP!”

Diamond didn’t even realize just how much she had raised her voice until she heard the sudden silence and saw the judging stares from the other students. Ms. Cheerilee gave her a warning glare over the rim of her glasses.

Diamond cleared her throat and said, “Sorry, Ms. Cheerilee.”

The murmur of the classroom soon returned as each group’s conversation resumed. Each group, that is, except for Diamond’s. Cozy and Silver exchanged a look, and Diamond had half a mind to yell at them again. Where did they get off trying to tell her what she should do? If everything with Chrysalis and her mother wasn’t already driving her insane, her friends not falling in line definitely would.

“C’mon, let’s do the stupid lab work,” Diamond said, and on that at least her two friends finally fell into lock step.

In the corner of the southeast wing of Canterlot High was a small, dead-end hallway where students rarely went. None of the lockers that lined the halls had a student assigned to it, and the overhead lights were burnt out, casting the hallway in darkness. According to Sunset Shimmer, something was wrong with the wiring in this corner of the building, because the custodian hadn’t been able to get the lights working for years and had apparently requested that the school hire an electrician on more than one occasion. Sunset had also mentioned that a student claimed she saw a rat down that hallway once, and as a result even the most troubled students at this school didn’t hang out here. That is, unless they planned on doing something unscrupulous, like threatening one of their peers.

Chrysalis spotted her target leaving her classroom along with the other students getting out for lunch. So, approaching her with care, Chrysalis put an arm around her in faux friendliness.

“Zipporwhill!” Chrysalis exclaimed, and Zipporwhill jumped in place. “Just the girl I wanted to talk to. Do you have a minute?”

Looking as nervous as one might look with someone nearly twice their height suddenly holding them, Zipporwhill said, “Uh…yes, I guess I could talk,” in her vaguely Latino accent.

Chrysalis was already gently but firmly leading her away. “Great. Don’t worry, this won’t take long.”

She led the much smaller girl down the hall and around the corner so they were both in the dark dead-end hallway. Chrysalis remained silent for a bit, allowing the dark atmosphere of the hallway and her own countenance to make her quarry squirm a bit as she dug around in her bag. It was a good way for Chrysalis to gauge whether she seemed guilty.

“So, um…what’s this about, Chrys?” Zipporwhill asked.

Finally, Chrysalis produced the folded paper with her name on it and showed it to Zipporwhill. “Does this look familiar to you?”

Zipporwhill’s eyes briefly grew bigger when she saw the paper. She then looked away. “N-no. Can’t say it does.”

“My, she’s a terrible liar,” said Queen, who appeared to be idly leaning against one of the lockers next to Zipporwhill. Chrysalis just continued to ignore her.

“I know you’re the one who left this on my desk, Zipp. So why don’t you cut the bullshit and tell me who put you up to it?” Chrysalis demanded.

“Nobody!”

“So, you admit you put it on my desk?” Chrysalis said, deciding that a little more intimidation was warranted and subtly altering her appearance to that effect: making herself slightly taller, making her eyes glow ever so slightly and of course, making her canines just a tiny bit more pronounced.

Zipporwhill’s eyes darted around, desperately searching for a way out. “I…I have to go.”

She then turned and took a step back into the main hallway, but Chrysalis wasn’t letting her get away that easily. She grabbed her by the wrist.

“H-hey! Let go!” Zipporwhill cried as she struggled helplessly against Chrysalis’s iron grip.

“Oh no, we’re not done talking yet—OW!” Chrysalis shouted as Zipporwhill kicked her in the shin.

Chrysalis’s grip remained firm though, even as Zipporwhill’s panic-fueled struggling increased. In an effort to keep the girl contained, Chrysalis grabbed her shoulder with her other hand and pushed her against the lockers.

“Goddammit stop!” Chrysalis exclaimed. “I’m not going to hurt you, I just want….”

“HELP! HE—” Zipporwhill started screaming, but Chrysalis covered her mouth with the palm of her hand, keeping her pinned to the lockers.

“Oh, this is going really well,” Queen drolled, her projection rolling its eyes.

“Will you just shut up and let me talk to her?!” Chrysalis hissed, momentarily forgetting that Queen wasn’t really there.

She returned her focus to Zipporwhill who for her part had stopped screaming into Chrysalis’s hand and was now just looking at her with wide eyes on the precipice of tears. “Now, if I remove my hand, are you gonna scream again?” Chrysalis asked.

Zipporwhill shook her head, and Chrysalis slowly, cautiously, removed her hand from her mouth. Zipporwhill took a few trembling breaths. “Oh God…oh God…. She told me you were crazy, but I didn’t think….”

“Who told you, Zipp?” Chrysalis asked. “The same person who told you to leave this note for me?”

Zipporwhill held her gaze for a second before her eyes darted away. “Are you going to hurt her?”

“That’s a good question. What are you going to do when you find out the identity of your blackmailer?” Queen asked.

Chrysalis would cross that bridge when she got to it. “Who gave you that note, Zipporwhill?”

Zipporwhill just shook her head, closing her eyes tight. “I can’t tell you. I made a promise.”

“Still won’t crack. I have to admit, she’s a lot tougher than she looks,” Queen said as she leaned in closer. “But we’ve broken tougher before, haven’t we?”

Chrysalis knew what Queen was doing. What she wanted her to do. She wanted to say that she wouldn’t do it. Wanted to say that she wasn’t that person anymore. But at this moment, with her life as a normal girl at stake, Chrysalis couldn’t say it. Not even to herself.

“Here, let me help you,” Queen said. Then to Chrysalis’s shock, her mental doppelganger took her hand in her own and moved it, guiding it to Zipporwhill’s throat. “No more half-measures, Crisalide.”

Chrysalis didn’t fight it. She let her hand close around Zipporwhill’s throat and started to squeeze. The smaller girl’s eyes bulged, and she desperately tried to pry Chrysalis’s hand off, to no avail. Chrysalis just glared at her. Chrysalis would not lose the life she had made for herself here. She would not let this girl take it from her!

Finally, Zipporwhill wheezed out, “S…Silv….”

Realizing she was finally talking, Chrysalis released her grip on Zipporwhill’s throat, at last remembering herself.

“It was Silver Spoon,” Zipporwhill gasped after a coughing fit. “She told me I could hang out with her, Diamond and Cozy if I gave you that and promised not to tell anyone, b-but if being one of the popular girls means dealing with psychos like you then fuck that!”

Zipporwhill turned and made her retreat from the dark hallway, and this time Chrysalis didn’t stop her, having learned what she wanted. Zipporwhill passed by Apple Bloom as she rounded the corner and disappeared. Chrysalis didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, but judging by the horrified look on her face, it was long enough.

“What the fuck, Chrys?!” she exclaimed.

Chrysalis’s heart dropped in her chest. “Wait, Bloomie…it’s not what you think!”

“Oh? Care to explain, then? Because I think you were just trying to kill Zipp!”

Beside her, Queen smiled. “That’s it. Explain to her how you’re being blackmailed over the fact you aren’t human. I’m sure that’ll go great!”

Chrysalis sighed. It was clear that she’d just lost a potential friend in Zipporwhill for good. She knew that even if she didn’t lose Apple Bloom as well, their friendship would certainly never fully heal. What they needed was trust, and Chrysalis was certain she’d just thrown it out the window.

The only thing left to do was to try to get it back. “Okay, Bloomie. Let’s find Scoots and Sweetie. I’ll tell you everything.”

The four girls were seated outside on the grass, leaning against the red brick of the school’s wall. It was a shockingly beautiful day despite being the middle of November, and the girls needed little more than light jackets to stay warm. It was for this reason that the four of them had agreed to pack their own lunches today rather than eat the day’s offerings of cafeteria food, which Chrysalis appreciated. Not only did the cycle of cheap school board-approved food get dull after a while, but Chrysalis wanted relative privacy for the conversation that was about to take place.

Apple Bloom had already told the other two what she’d found Chrysalis doing at the start of the lunch period, so Chrysalis wasted no time laying it out on the proverbial table.

“‘I know your secret?’” Scootaloo said, reading from the note Chrysalis had put out. “What does this mean, Chrys?”

“I take it this has something to do with why you were terrorizing Zipporwhill in that sketchy hallway,” Apple Bloom said.

“That’s right. First of all, I’m sorry you had to see that, Bloomie. That person…she’s not me, not anymore. Still, a little bit of her slipped out then, and I deeply regret it,” Chrysalis said before continuing, “Now to answer your question, Zipporwhill was the one who left the blackmail note on my desk this morning.”

“Aw, but Zipp always seemed so nice,” Sweetie said. “I can’t imagine her blackmailing anyone.”

“That’s because she didn’t. She told me herself: Diamond Tiara’s friends put her up to it,” Chrysalis said, sighing as the benefit of hindsight painted a much clearer picture for her. A picture that, unfortunately, didn’t capture her best side. “Now that I think about it, she probably didn’t even know what was in the note. I’m sure if I just told her that it was blackmail in the first place, I wouldn’t have even needed to get so rough with her, but…I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.”

It was hard to miss the hint of suspicion in Apple Bloom’s voice as she said, “It sounds like whatever Diamond has on you is making you worried.”

Apple Bloom hadn’t asked, but the question hung in the air. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both leaned forward, not bothering to hide their eagerness. Chrysalis sighed.

“Look, I don’t know what this ‘proof’ is that Diamond claims she has. For all I know, it could be a bluff,” she said, taking a deep breath.

Her three friends were still looking at her expectantly. This was it. The moment of truth. Or rather, the lack thereof.

“You guys remember how I told you that I used to be like the old Sunset, except like, eight times worse? Well, it was no exaggeration,” Chrysalis started, pausing as she considered how she was going to play this next part out. “When I was living in Klamath Falls, I was…well, troubled. I guess I was just lashing out at the world, still processing all of my pain and anger from years of sexual abuse and being thrown into a strange new country on top of that. The fact that my mother wasn’t really around to help me process any of it didn’t make matters any easier—basically, I was on my own and...well, things went sideways, hard.”

It was not a lie, Chrysalis told herself. It was like some of her favorite movies she’d watched with Celestia and Sable, or with Star Tracker and the others in the movie club. This story is based on true events. Only the names, dates and locations have been changed.

“You see, I didn’t just fall in with a bad crowd—I was the queen of the bad crowd. In just a few short years I’d amassed an army of young delinquents and terrorized the place that had become my new home. I had decided that if I had endure having everything taken from me, I was going to take back whatever I could from the world. So, I had my subjects—uh, that was what I called the members of my little gang—steal anything I wanted. If anyone stood against me, I had them put in their place. Anyone my army couldn’t beat into submission, I destroyed their lives in other ways.” Sometimes literally, Chrysalis thought, but didn’t voice. Instead she added, “I even ruined the wedding of an authority figure who was giving us trouble.

“It took me getting arrested and spending a few nights in juvie before I realized that I had no future living that kind of life. In fact, I’d pretty much given up on having any kind of future at all before Celestia came into my life.” Chrysalis found herself getting teary eyed as the truth at the center of the lie she was telling started to hit her. “If it wasn’t for Celestia, I don’t know where I’d be right now,” she sniffed. “I’d probably be back there, with no one but my ‘subjects’ for company. Or I’d be imprisoned, or maybe even dead. Just another broken child the world forgot….”

Chrysalis sniffed again and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

She then heard a slow clap and noted the dark form of Queen in her peripheral vision. “Brava! Brava! I daresay that was your finest work yet!”

Chrysalis said nothing, merely waiting to see how her friends reacted.

“So, you’re telling me you were basically a twelve-year-old Heisenberg?” Scootaloo asked, grinning. “Damn, that’s fucking iconic, Chrys!”

Clearly annoyed by Scootaloo’s take on Chrysalis’s apparent life of crime, but choosing to ignore it, Sweetie Belle reached out and touched Chrysalis’s shoulder. “Jeez Chrys, I had no idea you had such a hard life,” she said, looking to be on the verge of tears herself. “I can’t believe Diamond Tiara is trying to use that against you.”

“Yeah, what exactly do you think she has? Maybe your criminal record?” Apple Bloom asked.

“I dunno, maybe,” Chrysalis lied. She had no criminal record, not on this world anyway. Still, it would have been preferable to whatever damning evidence Diamond really had.

“That girl has gone too far this time,” Sweetie Belle said, her soft green eyes turning hard.

“My thoughts exactly!” Scootaloo said, practically bouncing in place. “Just tell us how we can help you deal with her!” Then with a chuckle, Scootaloo added, “We can be your new ‘subjects’!”

Laughing, Chrysalis said, “Thanks, but I don’t plan on going back to being a queen any time soon.”

Chrysalis spared a smile and a glance in Queen’s direction, reveling a bit in her frown.

“So, what are you planning to do about her then, Chrys?” Apple Bloom asked.

Honestly, Chrysalis wasn’t sure. She had options: Sunset Shimmer had power and connections, but Chrysalis was tired of always relying on her. Sunset was always happy to help—it was in her kind nature—but more and more Chrysalis was feeling like a burden to her. She already had Sunset looking into her “Queen” problem. It wouldn’t feel right to make her clean up another of her messes. No, this was her battle.

“I’ll play along with Diamond’s game for now,” she said. “I’ll go to the meet at the Sugarcube Corner Cafe so I can get some idea of her hand. Figure out what exactly she has, and what she wants. I’ll figure out where to go from there.”

“If you think that’s best…” Sweetie said. It was clear from her downcast expression that she really wanted to help with this, and Chrysalis could tell that the others felt the same.

Another problem suddenly made itself apparent. “Sable’s been really strict lately about my curfew, though. He expects me home before six every night,” she said.

“Right, that’s a problem if the meet is right at six,” Apple Bloom mused.

“You can still go over to a friend’s place for the evening, right?” Scootaloo asked.

“Yeah, as long as Sable or Celestia picks me up, he’s okay with it.”

Scootaloo put an arm around Chrysalis and gave her a hearty slap on the back, grinning wide. “Then you’re coming over to my place for dinner tonight. My folks have been wanting to meet you for ages now!” Then with a more mischievous look, she added, “I’ll just tell them you’re coming at seven instead of six.”

Chrysalis nodded, feeling a little bit better about the whole situation now that they had a plan (even if it was a vague one). “Okay, that can work.”

The four of them sat there eating in comfortable silence for a minute or two. All the while, Apple Bloom glanced from Chrysalis down to the food in her lap and back to Chrysalis again. Something was clearly on her mind, but Chrysalis didn’t want to push the issue. She was just glad that things seemed to have turned out okay between them.

“Hey Chrys, thanks for telling us that,” Apple Bloom said. “I’m sure that couldn’t have been easy for you.”

Lying to her friends never was. “It’s no problem. It was past time I opened up more about my past anyway.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Apple Bloom said, taking a breath. Chrysalis could taste how nervous she was suddenly becoming. “Considering Diamond really seems to have it out for you, maybe it’s past time I opened up about my own past with her.”

Chrysalis raised a brow and unconsciously scooted closer. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo just continued finishing off their meals, clearly having heard this story already.

“You know we used to be friends since we were kids, right?” Apple Bloom asked, and Chrysalis nodded. “Well, by the time both of us started going to middle school across the field…things changed.”

Chrysalis had a pretty good idea of how this part of the story went. According to Diamond, the two of them had started drifting apart in their middle school years. Diamond said it was because she had grown up while Apple Bloom had refused to do so, but Chrysalis suspected she wasn’t an entirely reliable narrator. Ever since ditching her, Chrysalis had figured the truth was that Apple Bloom simply couldn’t deal with the uptight sociopath Diamond had become.

Then Apple Bloom continued her story, and Chrysalis realized she had never been more wrong about anything in her life.

“As our first year across the field went on, I noticed…things about Diamond that I hadn’t ever noticed before.” Apple Bloom’s face started to turn red. “Y’know, things like how soft her hair looked, and how cute her confident smile was, and…y’know…how pretty her eyes were.”

Chrysalis was in such disbelief of what she was hearing she didn’t hear the little snort of amusement from Scootaloo. Chrysalis remembered when she was still agonizing over her date with Star Tracker, and how Apple Bloom had deflected when the topic of her own romantic history came up. “Wait…are you telling me that you were…into Diamond Tiara?!”

“Yeah, threw us off the first time we heard it too,” Sweetie said with a grin.

“I didn’t really know what I was feeling at the time, but yeah. If one good thing came out of knowing Diamond Tiara, it was learning that I’m not exactly straight,” Apple Bloom said. “I realized that when she kissed me one day when we were hanging out. We’d been talking about who we liked and…I dunno, guess she figured out how I felt. What was more, she seemed to feel the same way. In the weeks after that, we started spending more time together…exploring how we felt about each other.”

“You guys were…experimenting?” Chrysalis asked, genuinely curious. She tried to wrap her mind around the idea of Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara being intimate and just couldn’t.

“Yep. We never went all the way if that’s what you’re asking, but…things did get physical.”

Apple Bloom’s face was turning very red now, so Chrysalis decided it was best to move along. “How did it go wrong?”

Sighing, Apple Bloom said, “Honestly, I have no idea. One day she showed up at school and was…different. Colder. I tried asking her what was wrong, but she brushed me aside. Before I knew it, she’d found a new group of friends, and she barely even acknowledged I existed.” Apple Bloom uneasily rubbed her arm. “When I tried confronting her about everything, she just laughed at me. Called me a ‘clingy dyke’ in front of all of her friends and said she left because she was tired of me drooling all over her.”

Judging by the pain that contorted Apple Bloom’s face and left an unpleasant burning sensation on Chrysalis’s tongue—like food that was way too spicy—it still hurt to think about. “Damn that’s awful, Bloomie,” Chrysalis said.

“Yeah. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there.” Apple Bloom took a moment to clear her throat as her voice started getting hoarse. “There was this prissy rich boy in her friend group at the time. Don’t remember his name, but I think he goes to Muenchinger now. Anyway, Diamond started dating him shortly after that. I was heartbroken...and furious.

“So I did something stupid.” Taking the deepest breath she had yet that conversation, Apple Bloom said, “I approached her boyfriend after school one day and said I needed to tell him something important. I really laid it on thick, like I was repenting something terrible.

“I told him that Diamond and I had been having sex while he’d been dating her. ‘I was weak,’ I said, hamming up the regret. ‘I should have told her no, but we have our history together and one thing led to another….’ He bought it. He cussed me out and stormed off, and I felt on top of the world. My plan worked. He and Diamond broke up. What I didn’t plan on was the rumor mill that followed.

“Suddenly, Diamond’s ‘lesbian affair’ was the talk of the whole school. I was already a social outcast by that point, so I was just a footnote in the rumors, but Diamond had been the popular rich girl. The rumors that evolved around her quickly mutated into some truly crazy shit. That she had an STD, that she touched herself in the girls’ locker room. There were even people who believed she was part of some secret underground lesbian sex ring.”

“Jesus Christ…” Chrysalis muttered.

“Indeed, she’s almost as ruthless as you are,” Queen’s voice mirthfully echoed in Chrysalis’s mind. “Perhaps I was wrong about your friends after all!”

“Yeah, she was on a fast track to getting into Zacherle, but the whole ordeal must have rattled her enough to affect her grades, because here she is going to CHS with us.” Chrysalis looked at Apple Bloom’s face, and the amount of regret she saw there rivaled full-grown adults with a lifetime of mistakes behind them. “My attempt to mess with her relationship with her boyfriend ended up messing up her entire life. Ever since then she’s been doing everything in her power to make my life miserable….” Apple Bloom looked directly at Chrysalis. “As well as anyone I’m friends with.”

It took Chrysalis a good minute to process everything she’d just heard. “I appreciate you trusting me with this, Bloomie. Really, but I don’t think Diamond’s coming after me now because of you.” Chrysalis looked down at her hand and idly flexed it. “She has as much cause to hate me as she does you.”

Scootaloo huffed and said, “You know, I’d actually feel bad for Diamond Tiara if she weren’t such a snobby bitch.”

“Scootaloo’s right. For once,” Sweetie said. “I told you before, Bloomie. What you did to her then doesn’t excuse what she’s doing now.”

“Your friends are actually making a lot of sense,” Queen said, still lingering just outside of Chrysalis’s vision. “Save your pity for someone who’s not threatening to expose us. When you go to meet Diamond Tiara, remember what I told you before.

“No more half measures.”

After the school day ended, Chrysalis found herself sitting in the waiting room of the therapist’s office. Celestia was seated beside her, idly flipping through one of the magazines on the table. Celestia had gotten out of work a little early that day so she could take Chrysalis to her appointment and had arrived at school to pick her up about ten minutes after classes had ended. Chrysalis had told Celestia of her plans to have dinner at Scootaloo’s place, and Celestia thought it was a nice idea.

They ended up being twenty-five minutes early for Chrysalis’s appointment, so the receptionist told them to take a seat while the therapist, Dr. Chrysoberyl, finished with her current appointment. For some reason, the therapist’s name struck a chord of familiarity with Chrysalis, and it wasn’t just the first five letters of her name. Chrysalis didn’t dwell on it though. She had a lot more important things on her mind. Things that she wanted to get off her chest now that she was alone in the waiting room with Celestia.

“Hey, Mom?” she said. The title still felt a bit weird, but Chrysalis was making more of an effort to use it. As far as she was concerned, Celestia had more than earned it. “You were pretty popular in high school, right?”

Celestia put down her magazine. “Yeah, why?”

“Did you ever have any kids try to, I dunno…mess up your life?”

Looking at Chrysalis with concern, Celestia asked, “Is someone at school giving you trouble?”

“Kinda,” Chrysalis said, not wanting to elaborate on the full scope of the situation.

“Well, despite being popular, my high school life didn’t exactly have very much drama,” Celestia said. “Honestly, my worst enemy in high school ended up being my sister.”

“Luna?”

“Yeah. Or ‘Nightmare Moon’ as she called herself then. Guess she got tired of living in my shadow, because in her freshman year she started acting out. Dressing in all black, hanging out with the ‘bad crowd.’ Picking fights. She became something of a tyrant.”

Chrysalis tried to imagine her stoic and mature principal as a goth rebel. The image seemed as impossible as that of Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara being together. “Huh. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be a Nightmare Moon in this world too,” Chrysalis mused.

“That’s right, I heard there was a ‘Nightmare Moon’ incident in the other world, too,” Celestia said. “Makes me glad my Nightmare Moon was just a troubled kid instead of, well, an angry god.”

Chrysalis couldn’t help but smile a bit. “How’d you deal with her? I somehow doubt that banishing her to the moon for a thousand years was an option.”

Celestia laughed. “Well, I confronted her. I wanted to reason with her, but she wanted to fight, so that’s what I ended up doing. I broke her arm.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” Celestia said, for once not jumping on Chrysalis for swearing. “I don’t recommend doing that with the person giving you trouble, of course.”

Chrysalis thought of Queen’s words to her. No more half measures. “But what if it’s the only way I can make them stop?”

“There’s always a better way,” Celestia said with a sigh. “If I could go back, I’d do it all differently. Because yes, breaking her arm did eventually put Luna back on the right path, but…she’s my sister, and I’ll always regret hurting her.”

“By the sounds of it, she didn’t give you much of a choice.”

“Perhaps. Maybe ‘Nightmare Moon’ and I were always destined to fight. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that breaking Luna’s arm didn’t address the heart of the matter: That she felt isolated and alone. That she was dealing with an inner battle that I was too wrapped up in my own world to notice.” Celestia then added, “In the end, a bully is really just someone who feels they have no one to turn to.”

Chrysalis thought about what Apple Bloom had told her at lunch. Before that, she’d always assumed that Diamond Tiara was a bitch because that was just her nature. But things weren’t ever really that simple, were they?

“I’ll keep that in mind, I guess,” Chrysalis said. “But…I dunno. I think the person I’m dealing with is a little past the point of being reasoned with.”

“Well, you never know just how much of a difference a little empathy could make,” Celestia said, reaching over and ruffling Chrysalis’s hair. “I remember a certain someone who seemed too far gone to be helped, but I tried anyway, and she seems to have turned out alright!”

Chrysalis giggled as she tried to bat away Celestia’s hand. “Alright alright, point taken.”

She still wasn’t sure how she would handle her Diamond Tiara situation, but at the very least Celestia had given her something to think about. It was around that time that Dr. Chrysoberyl came out, and Chrysalis and Celestia both stood as Chrysoberyl wished her previous patient a good week. She and Celestia greeted each other as old friends and then Chrysoberyl introduced herself to Chrysalis.

“We’ll spend our hour today just going over your background. That is, as long as you’re comfortable talking about it,” Chrysoberyl explained. “That way I can get an idea of how best to help you.”

“Sounds good,” Chrysalis said, realizing once again that she would have to tell the story that she and Celestia had both fabricated for her to be able to exist in this world. Perhaps mixing in a little of the lie she’d told her friends at lunch.

The lying didn’t really bother her much before when she first started living with Celestia and Sable; it was no different from the hundreds of times she’d gone undercover as the queen of the changelings. Besides, everyone in her life that really mattered already knew the truth about who she was and where she was from and understood the necessity of the lie.

But then she told her elaborate story to her friends and Apple Bloom had responded by completely opening up about an uncomfortable truth from her own past. It was the first time Chrysalis had felt genuinely awful about lying, and the thought of doing the same to this woman who was only trying to help her made her stomach churn a little. More and more Chrysalis was starting to think that this whole therapy thing was going to be an exercise in futility.

About one hour later, Chrysalis was on her way to the meeting with Diamond. Celestia had offered to drop her off at Scootaloo’s place, but Chrysalis had insisted on taking the CanterRail. Chrysalis had made a half-hearted excuse about not wanting Celestia to go out of her way (Scootaloo’s place was fairly off the beaten path for them), but the real reason was simply that Chrysalis wasn’t going to Scootaloo’s place. Not yet anyway.

The therapy session went alright. Honestly, the most Chrysalis had gotten out of it was realizing why Dr. Chrysoberyl seemed so familiar to her. Chrysalis was pretty sure her pony counterpart had been a member of the Covenant of Shadows while Chrysalis had been secretly running it. The only reason Chrysalis even remembered her at all is because she had seemed to be playing her own game, and Chrysalis had been keeping a close eye on her in case whatever she was planning came into conflict with her own plans. For a moment, Chrysalis wondered what had become of the pony Chrysoberyl. If she hadn’t died in the Covenant hideout’s collapse, she was surely in prison by now.

The thought was nothing more than a temporary distraction. By the time the subway train emptied out at the stop before hers, Chrysalis’s thoughts were already back on her current situation.

“All this time thinking, and you still haven’t figured out what you’re going to do,” Queen said.

Chrysalis looked across the train from where she was seated and saw her reflection in the window clearly in the blackness of the underground tunnel zooming by.

“I have a plan,” Chrysalis told it.

Her reflection licked its lips and said, “Your plan is to show up. Beyond that you have nothing!”

“Okay. What do you suggest, then?”

“From where I’m sitting you have two options,” Queen said. “Either you do nothing, and Diamond Tiara exposes who and what you really are to the world, alienating your friends and giving you no reason to stay here. Or, you bury the bitch just as you have done with everyone who has crossed you before, proving once and for all that you will always be Queen Chrysalis and making me so proud!” Queen then smiled wide and shrugged. “Either way works for me!”

“Or I could just do whatever it is Diamond Tiara wants.”

Queen scoffed, “Come now, even the new you would never stand for that.”

She was right, of course. No matter what happened tonight, Chrysalis refused to simply roll over and let herself be blackmailed. Even if it meant the worst possible outcome, she would fight this battle.

“Good. You still have some fight in you,” Queen said, apparently sensing her resolve. “You have to ask yourself what you’re willing to do, Chrysalis. How far will you go to keep this new life of yours?”

It was a thought that scared Chrysalis more than she liked. That she truly would do anything to keep the happy life she’d found for herself now. Anything. Even falling back on old tactics. Even selling her soul.

My soul’s already forfeit anyway. Yes, maybe it was foolish of her to believe she could ever have a happy life as just a regular kid. Maybe she would always be a monster.

Chrysalis nearly missed her stop, just barely managing to get off the train before the doors closed.

Despite rushing to the Sugarcube Corner Cafe as quickly as reasonable, Chrysalis still didn’t arrive until almost fifteen minutes after six. She spotted Diamond Tiara immediately as she entered; apparently it was a slow evening, and she was the only customer present. She was looming over a latte and was idly stroking a finger across the screen of her phone in a corner booth. The very same corner booth over which she had started a fight with Apple Bloom and her friends so many weeks ago. Taking a deep breath, Chrysalis calmly and confidently strode over to join her.

The battle had begun.

“Kept me waiting a while, Chrys,” Diamond said as she sat down across from her. “For a moment there I thought you weren’t gonna show.”

Chrysalis made no retort, and a server quickly stopped by their booth to ask her if she wanted to order something. Chrysalis asked for a Coke.

“Ah, this takes me back,” Diamond sighed, taking a sip of her latte. “Weren’t things simpler back when we were friends?”

Chrysalis didn’t have the patience for her mind games. “Diamond, how about you cut the crap and get down to brass tacks here?”

With a careless shrug, Diamond tapped the screen of her phone a couple of times and then turned it for Chrysalis to see. At first, Chrysalis wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking at. The video playing showed a forest at night, tinted green by the camera’s night vision. Then the camera’s shaking settled, and she noticed the three boys standing face to face with a giant wolf. All at once the memory of that Halloween night returned, and Chrysalis knew exactly what she was going to see before it played out on the screen.

She remembered assuming the form of the giant wolf, recalling her memory of a recent viewing of Harry Potter for inspiration. She remembered tasting the terror in Rover and his friends as she appeared before them in this form, and most importantly, she remembered checking to make sure no one else had been around before returning to her human form. Clearly, she hadn’t been careful enough, if this video’s existence was any indication. Admittedly, seeing the werewolf transform back into her made her feel very foolish.

“Now, before you get any ideas about ‘silencing’ me before this gets out, I should let you know that both Silver and Cozy are standing by with their own copies of this video,” Diamond explained, wasting no time. She was nervous, Chrysalis could taste it, but someone without her unique abilities would only see Diamond as calm and calculating. “I’ve given them instructions to put it live across all social media platforms—including my own—if they don’t hear from me in…” Diamond checked the time. “...nineteen minutes.”

It was at that moment that Chrysalis spotted another customer in the establishment who hadn’t been there a moment ago. Queen looked up at her from the adjacent table with an amused grin. “How cute, she thinks she has this all figured out. This is going to be easier than I thought!”

Queen was right. Clearly Diamond did not know the full extent of Chrysalis’s shapeshifting abilities, or she would have accounted for them in her plan. Chrysalis had seen her unlock her phone with her thumbprint: poor security against a shapeshifter. Taking Diamond’s phone and using it to call Silver and Cozy while mimicking her voice would be child’s play.

To drive the point home further, Diamond asked, “I’m kind of curious, what exactly are you, anyway? An alien? Some kind of secret experiment?”

Amusingly, she was actually closer to the mark than she realized. “Something like that,” was Chrysalis’s only answer.

Shrugging, Diamond replied, “Whatever, you don’t have to tell me. Knowing what you are isn’t part of my terms.”

“Figures. So, what do you want?”

“I only want what I’ve wanted from the beginning: Your connections and occasional muscle,” Diamond explained. “I want you to put me in contact with Sunset Shimmer and tell her that whatever she might have heard happened between me and her friends’ sisters was just a misunderstanding. I’ll take care of the rest. Aside from that, just make sure you and your new friends stay out of my way. I may occasionally call on you to help straighten out anyone else who tries to fuck with me—your unique abilities are certainly good for scaring people—but other than that, there’s no reason we can’t both carry on with our lives as normal.”

Having said her piece, Diamond leaned back in her seat, arms folded and a confident smirk on her lips, clearly waiting for an answer. Chrysalis tried to hold herself back, but she just couldn’t help it. She started to chuckle and very quickly devolved into outright laughter as relief washed over her. Diamond’s smirk fell away as Chrysalis showed no signs of stopping.

“I’m not sure I get the joke,” Diamond said. “Care to enlighten me?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Chrysalis gasped, reining in her giggles before she continued, “It’s just…that’s it?! My fate is in your hands and that’s the extent of what your imagination can conjure? Help you make friends with Sunset? Is this your first time blackmailing someone?”

Her frown deepening as another wave of laughter overtook Chrysalis, Diamond said, “Sunset Shimmer is my key to….”

“To being seen as her legitimate successor, I know,” Chrysalis said. “But you should know, even if I agreed to what you’re asking, things won’t go the way you think they will. Sunset is far too smart for you. She won’t be fooled for a second.”

For her part, Diamond still looked remarkably calm even though the conversation was not likely going the way she thought it would. “Let me worry about convincing her. All you need to worry about is making sure this,” Diamond tapped the video on the phone screen, “doesn’t see the light of day.”

“Right, let’s circle back to the video for a second,” Chrysalis said, tapping Diamond’s screen to play the blackmail video back again. “Who do you think is going to see this and think, ‘Yeah, that’s definitely a real monster,’ and not, I don’t know, a cool visual effects exercise?”

Diamond looked away, and a pained, bitter edge entered her voice as she said, “Trust me, you’d be surprised at the kind of insane rumors people are willing to believe.”

A twinge of sympathy hit Chrysalis at that moment, as she realized exactly what Diamond was referring to.

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened between you and Apple Bloom. That whole situation was fucked, but this—what you’re doing right now—isn’t gonna fix what happened.”

With a “Hmph,” Diamond said, “So she told you about that, huh?” Chrysalis nodded, and Diamond said, “Well, whatever. I’m over it. This has nothing to do with what happened then.” Diamond leaned forward. “So, can I count on your cooperation or not?”

As Chrysalis considered her options, the figure made of shadow and smoke in her peripheral vision stood and moved closer; not walking so much as gliding. “You’re doing a great job, Chrysalis. You’ve thrown her off balance. All you need to do next is deal with her.” Chrysalis tried her best not to look as Queen leaned over the table, flashing rows of sharp teeth as she grinned, her face mere inches away. “You know what to do next. Show her why she never should have crossed us!”

Chrysalis knew what she had to do. It would be no different than the secret sabotage missions she would personally undertake when she was the queen of the changelings. First, she would need to take out Diamond—there was no need to kill her, merely knocking her out and stashing her away somewhere would suffice. Then she could assume her form and start the real work. She would infiltrate Diamond’s clique as the girl herself and gather intel. Find out where each of their copies of the blackmail video was and destroy them. Then she would dismantle all of Diamond's relationships so she was left with nothing. Make sure Diamond would never try anything like this again.

Except, Diamond won’t stop, she or maybe Queen thought. She’ll just keep plotting. Come up with another plan, and next time she’ll have a much better idea of what we’re capable of.

“You’ll have to deal with her permanently, or else you’ll be dealing with her for the rest of your school days. Maybe even the rest of your life,” Queen whispered into her ear.

“Yes. It would barely even require any effort,” Chrysalis muttered, not realizing she’d said those same words before.

“W-what?” Diamond asked, and Chrysalis could taste the fear emanating from her—not as much as when her hand was around the other girl’s throat, but the difference was gradually shrinking.

Yes, Chrysalis had already promised Diamond Tiara that she’d kill her if she ever messed with her again. Yet here she was, blackmailing her. A second warning would be even less effective. Chrysalis couldn’t afford to bluff any longer.

“That’s right,” Queen said. “No more half measures, remember?”

“Chrysalis?” Diamond asked, shifting nervously in her seat. She had a brave face even as she seemed ready to bolt out of there. “What’s it going to be, huh?”

That was the big question. Because in addition to Queen’s voice whispering in her ear, Chrysalis could also hear another. It was Celestia’s voice, she realized. Not a vengeful entity living in her mind, but the memory of what Celestia had said to her; the angel on her shoulder counteracting the devil that was Queen on the other.

In the end, a bully is really just someone who feels they have no one to turn to, Celestia’s voice said.

“She can’t be reasoned with,” Queen said.

And, Celestia’s memory responded, you never know just how much of a difference a little empathy could make.

“No. More. Half. Measures.”

It occurred to Chrysalis then that this was the real battle she’d come here to fight. A battle of good versus evil, not between her and Diamond, but between the two halves of herself. Yes, it sounded melodramatic, but she had this unshakable feeling that how she dealt with Diamond Tiara today would set the course for how she would live the rest of her life in this world. Would she only go through life passively, saying that she was good while falling on old tactics? Or would she truly be good?

The answer was obvious. “Why is this so important to you anyway?” Chrysalis asked, looking at Diamond calmly.

Diamond seemed confused. “Why? What do you mean, why? This is to prepare me for a successful political career.”

“You can have that without bullying and blackmailing your way through high school.” Chrysalis pierced her with her gaze, neither malicious nor condescending, as she asked, “Come on, Di. Why can’t you just…be a normal kid?”

“I…” Diamond started but trailed off. Chrysalis could taste a sudden whirlwind of emotions from her as she answered, “I’m just destined for greater things, I guess.”

Chrysalis laughed, but this time it wasn’t the mocking sound that it had been before. There was something much more whimsical—almost sad—about it now. “Funny, someone’s been telling me the same thing a lot lately,” she said, sparing a glance Queen’s way. “But what that person fails to realize is that our ‘destiny’ is what we make it. No one can choose it for us.”

Diamond Tiara looked back at Chrysalis with a furrowed brow. “What kind of mind games are you trying to play now?”

“No games. Just simple advice,” Chrysalis said. She then noticed that Diamond’s hand had subconsciously ventured its way up to her neck, and Chrysalis realized she was likely feeling a phantom hand around it. “For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry for what happened during our last talk. You were completely out of line, but I went too far. I shouldn’t have hurt you like I did.”

Diamond blinked, for a moment at a loss for words. “I…I-I don't.... Do you really think saying you're sorry is going to get you out of this?!” she shouted, then took a moment to center herself. “This is the last time I’m asking: Do I have your cooperation?”

Chrysalis stood from the table. “Talk to Sunset yourself—you don’t need me as your go-between. The only thing you’re going to get from me is advice: make your offer of friendship genuine. Be humble and sincere and you should apologize for your part of what happened between you and Apple Bloom—she feels just as horrible for her part of what happened as you do, trust me. If you can do that, you might just have a shot!”

With a smile and a wink, Chrysalis said sincerely, “Best of luck!” and then turned and walked out of the Corner, feeling the heavy weight leave her shoulders. Behind her, Diamond Tiara sat in her booth, radiating a tempest of confused emotions, and at the center of them all a throbbing pain as deep as it was old.

Chrysalis understood exactly how she was feeling. Diamond’s emotions tasted just like her own had after her defeat in Equestria. She knew exactly where Diamond was now because she had been there herself. But she had thrown Diamond a lifeline. Whether she took it now was up to her.

As Chrysalis walked down the street to the CanterRail station, where a train would take her to Scootaloo’s place for dinner, Queen fell into lock step beside her.

“Congratulations on taking the high road,” she said bitterly. “Enjoy it while it lasts—by this time tomorrow everyone you know will have seen that video. I wonder what you’ll do then!”

“I’ll deal with it…my way, not yours!”

Chrysalis continued to walk, surprised by the unexpected silence from Queen. It gave her breathing room to think…about everything. Not just about Diamond Tiara, but everything that had been on her mind for the last few days. All of her conversations with Queen—in particular the moments where her walls had seemed to come down—as well as what Celestia had said to her today that ultimately decided tonight’s battle.

“I don’t think Diamond Tiara putting out that video is as certain as you think,” Chrysalis said to Queen, even though she could no longer see her walking beside her. “My mother’s right: a little empathy goes a long way. It saved me, after all…I think it can help Diamond too. More than just her, in fact.”

Queen hesitated to ask, “What do you mean?”

“Remember what you told me the other night? About my nightmares being mine and mine alone?” Chrysalis asked. “I don’t think that’s entirely true.”

“You delude yourself,” Queen said. “I told you before, I have no control over what you dream.”

“I remember, and I think you’re being honest. But you're also wrong. At least one of my nightmares was yours.” Chrysalis thought of the last dream she’d had as Queen Calyx, and the horrible things she’d endured. “I realized something just now: Whatever our differences are, we’ve both suffered the same. Don’t try to tell me it’s different.”

Queen was silent for a moment before replying, “Yes, we have both suffered.”

“Then why the hostility?” Chrysalis asked. “I’m not the one who murdered you all those centuries ago. I didn’t ask to have our bodies and minds merged.”

“And yet, here we are. Two peas in a pod,” Queen said. “And since we’re being honest with each other now, allow me to point out that I was the one who wanted us to work together. The bulk of the hostility was on your end!”

“Yeah, that’s fair, but can you really blame me? You are trying to take away my happy life here, after all,” Chrysalis said. “That being said, I am truly sorry for everything you’ve been through.”

Queen didn’t answer for a while, and Chrysalis almost thought she’d left her alone for the time being until Queen said, “I…I-I don’t care if you’re sorry! Sorry doesn’t change what happened. Sorry doesn’t give me justice!”

“Perhaps not, but neither does lashing out at the world,” Chrysalis said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “I think you’ve had it wrong all this time. I’m not the one who’s been running from my destiny. You are.”

“Preposterous.”

“It’s understandable. You’ve been dealt a real shitty hand. I honestly feel bad for you. But the sooner you come to terms with your destiny, the easier it will be for both of us.”

Diamond Tiara stormed her way down the street towards the bus stop, fuming. It just made no sense! She’d expected any number of reactions from Chrysalis when she revealed her hand to her. Rage had been almost certain, as were the likely death threats that would follow. Diamond had also hoped that the prospect of having her secret outed would make Chrysalis afraid—feel the same fear and helplessness that Diamond herself had felt when she had been at the other girl’s mercy.

But Diamond hadn’t been prepared for…whatever that was. Here she was, using her trump card to finally put that bitch in her place and she…felt sorry for her? Yes, there was no mistaking it. What Diamond had seen in Chrysalis’s eyes was not fear, anger, or hate. It was pity. The very idea enraged Diamond far more than if Chrysalis had simply told her to get fucked.

Why can’t you just…be a normal kid?

It was that question that played itself over and over again in Diamond’s mind. Who was she to tell her to be a normal kid, considering she was…whatever she was? It just made no sense! Be a normal kid. Why did that of all things get so deep under her skin?

Diamond’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing in her handbag. Seeing Silver Spoon’s picture come up on her phone screen made her realize that she’d completely forgotten to check in with them after her meeting with Chrysalis.

“Hey Silvy,” Diamond answered.

“There you are! I was getting worried," Silver Spoon said.

“Did you release the video?” Diamond asked urgently.

“No, not yet. I wanted to make sure you didn’t just forget to call first.”

Not realizing she had taken a breath of relief, Diamond listened as Silver asked, “Was the meeting a success?”

If she was being honest, Diamond wasn’t sure. It hadn’t gone the way she had planned, but somehow it didn’t feel like it had necessarily gone wrong.

“Di? You still there?” Silver asked when Diamond didn’t answer.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”

“Well, what happened? Is Chrysalis going to play ball or not?”

This, Diamond knew the answer to. “No. She didn’t go for it.”

There was a slight pause on Silver’s end. “Okay…so, we’re uploading the video now, right?”

“No! Not yet.”

“But…you said….”

“I KNOW WHAT I SAID!” Diamond stopped walking and took a breath to calm down. “Look, the situation is more complicated than we thought, okay?”

“How so?”

“I just…need to think, okay?! May I do that?!”

Silver sounded annoyed when she said, “The hell’s gotten into you, Di?”

“Just hold off on the video for now, okay? I’ll figure this out!” Not waiting for a reply, Diamond hung up and kept walking.

I bet Chrysalis doesn’t have to put up with this bullshit, Diamond thought, and then another popped into her head.

Was she…jealous of Chrysalis? Just what did she have to be jealous of?!

Sudden bright lights and the sound of screeching tires pulled Diamond out of her spiraling thoughts, and she looked up just in time to see the hood of a brown van come to an abrupt stop as it pulled out of a driveway mere inches from her. Furious, she looked up at the driver, a scraggly bearded man who merely looked at her impatiently. A man with a face marked with scars sat in the passenger seat and glared at her with annoyance. Diamond could hear music blasting from inside the van—something by one of the Beatles, it sounded like.

You come on like a dream, peaches and cream,
Lips like strawberry wine

Diamond kicked the van’s bumper and yelled, “PAY MORE ATTENTION, ASSHOLE!” Before continuing on her way.

She heard the van pull out onto the street beside her as she walked, but something wasn’t right. Rather than accelerate and drive down the road, Diamond could hear the van roll slowly along behind her. She stopped walking and heard the van roll to a stop, its engine still idling. For some reason, it was the realization that the van was driving down the wrong side of the road that made Diamond realize she was in danger.

She started walking again, and again she heard the van roll forward, following her at a slow but steady pace. Diamond started walking faster, and the van increased its speed to match. There was no one else around. She was alone on an empty side street.

Her heart pounding, Diamond bolted across the street diagonally and she heard the van’s engine roar to life as it accelerated after her like a hungry beast. A row of cars was parked along this side of the street, and Diamond darted between them as she started running down the sidewalk back the way she came—in the direction of people, she hoped.

Behind her, Diamond could hear the telltale beep…beep…beep of the van as it backed up. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed that the van wasn’t turning around: it was accelerating backwards, getting faster and faster. The van accelerated past her, still bellowing its battle cry of beep…beep…beep over the roar of its engines, the sound of Ringo Starr’s voice creating a doppler effect as it sped past.

…You're my baby, you're my pet,
We fell in love on the night we met…

Ahead of her, Diamond could see what appeared to be a closed parking lot protected by retractable steel bollards. If she could make it past them, the van wouldn’t be able to follow, and she’d be able to cut across the lot to the street on the other side, where she might be able to find other people or a store to duck into. Unfortunately, the van was faster, and had anticipated her move. Diamond’s way forward was suddenly blocked, and all she could see was the logo of a cockroach under a flyswatter above the words S & S Pest Removal.

The squished pest then slid aside with the van’s side door and about half a dozen men poured out. Her heart catching in her throat, Diamond whirled around and tried to run the other way. As she did she reached into her handbag to pull out her phone. She was getting exhausted: she knew she couldn’t keep running. Her best bet was to call someone. Her friends, her parents, the police, it didn’t matter.

Diamond unlocked her phone but before she could even close out the video of the werewolf turning into Chrysalis, she felt a hand grab her by the arm. Terrified now, she tried to scream, but another hand quickly covered her mouth. Yet another hand grabbed the phone from her own, and Diamond was vaguely aware that the scarred man she’d seen in the van’s passenger seat was holding her phone, looking at the screen with apparent curiosity.

Diamond squirmed and fought with all her might, but knew it was no use. She had one last option: She bit hard into the hand covering her mouth and heard a shout of pain as the hand retreated. She took the opportunity she was given to fall back on her last, desperate play.

“HELP! HELP, SOMEBODY!” she screamed, but was very quickly drowned out as the volume of the song playing on the radio in the van suddenly increased elevenfold. The song only got louder as she was roughly dragged back towards the van.

You walked out of my dreams, and into my car.
Now you're my angel divine

Even though she knew it was pointless, Diamond kept screaming, praying to whatever god was listening that someone would save her. Instead, she felt a sudden sharp pinch and pressure on her neck, and realized she’d been injected with something as the whole world started to spin and darkness closed around her. The last thing she could hear was the distorted voice of Ringo.

You're sixteen, you're beautiful, and you're mine.
All mine, all mine, all mine. All mine, all mine, all mine...

Chapter 9 - Killer Queen

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When Chrysalis awoke that morning, the first thing she did was check her phone, nervous about what she would find. But she was relieved to find no messages from her friends asking her about a certain video. Indeed, there was no trace of the video of her transforming anywhere online that Chrysalis could find. What was more, Diamond Tiara was silent across all of her social media platforms, her most recent post from about thirty minutes before their meetup the previous night. Chrysalis hoped that was a good sign: it meant she was really considering everything she’d said to her.

Even still, Chrysalis gave Sunset Shimmer a quick call informing her of the situation. Chrysalis wasn’t asking for help; in fact, she made sure Sunset knew she stood by her decision to deal with this matter herself. However, Chrysalis realized that morning that if her identity as a changeling was compromised, Sunset would need to deal with it regardless lest she risk her own exposure. The least Chrysalis could do was warn her should things come to that.

“I see. Thanks for the heads up, Chrys,” Sunset said after Chrysalis finished explaining everything.

“You’d have done the same for me,” Chrysalis replied, not giving it a second thought.

“You’re right, but you handled it yourself, and did it without resorting to violence or intimidation. Even I still find myself falling back on those kinds of tactics from time to time.”

Chrysalis hadn’t expected that. “Really?”

“Yeah, certain people are pretty good at getting under my skin even now. But the fact that you rose above it and tried to do the right thing in spite of what’s at stake is pretty impressive. You’ve really come a long way in the month you’ve been living with Celestia and Sable.” What Sunset said next made Chrysalis grin from ear to ear. “I’m proud of you, Chrys.”

For a moment, Chrysalis was at a loss for words. “Thanks, Sunny.”

After concluding her call, Chrysalis went into the kitchen to make herself a quick breakfast.

“Well, somebody’s in a good mood,” Celestia commented, looking up from her own breakfast at the kitchen table.

“Yeah, I just have this feeling like everything’s finally starting to work out,” Chrysalis said.

It was the truth. Her nightmares were much more manageable last night than they’d been for the past few. Even Queen had been silent for the past twelve hours; a new record.

Her good mood carried her all the way to school, where her friends all eagerly waited for her.

“Well?” Sweetie Belle asked. “How’d it go?”

Chrysalis didn’t need her to clarify what she was referring to. “Like I told you last night, it went about as well as it could have gone.”

“I still think you should’ve beaten her up,” Scootaloo said. Chrysalis had told her what had happened in much more detail the previous night when she went over to her family’s place for dinner. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle she’d only messaged to let them know she was okay but didn’t give them any details beyond that.

“So, what actually happened?” Apple Bloom asked. “You got there, you met up with her and then what? Did you see what she had on you?”

“Yes,” Chrysalis said. The expectant looks from her friends indicated they wanted at least a little explanation, so Chrysalis told them what she’d decided would suffice. “It turned out to be nothing. A doctored video, and a badly done one at that. It was almost insulting.”

“She must have really been desperate,” Apple Bloom mused.

Her assessment certainly fit what Chrysalis had seen the other night. She wondered what exactly Diamond had been dealing with to get to that point but decided not to dwell on it.

“I’m just ready to put the whole thing behind me, honestly,” Chrysalis said.

“I hear that,” Sweetie said, and the topic of conversation quickly moved to other things: the day’s classes, homework, after school plans and the kind of matters typically discussed by high school freshmen.

Soon the bell rang indicating the start of the day’s first period classes, and Chrysalis left her friends to attend hers. Today’s first class was Geography, a class she happened to share with Diamond Tiara. Things in this class had already been awkward ever since her first fight with Diamond nearly a month ago. Chrysalis could only imagine how things would be now.

But before she knew it, the teacher ordered everyone to their seats and started taking attendance, making a note of Diamond Tiara’s absence. That was certainly unusual: Diamond wasn’t known to ditch classes. Maybe the events of the previous night had more of an impact on her than Chrysalis had initially thought. Only time would tell whether it would be for the better.

Cozy Glow watched as once again Silver Spoon (seated across from her at their usual table in the cafeteria) tried calling Diamond Tiara, and once again was taken straight to her voicemail without ringing once.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Silver said, as she tried to eat the food on her tray in spite of her very clear worry. “Di’s never just straight-up ignored my calls before! Ugh where the hell is she?”

As always, Cozy just half-listened as Silver rambled on. She knew that the girl didn’t particularly like her anyway, only tolerating her because of Diamond. It didn’t bother Cozy in the slightest. It didn’t matter to her what Silver thought; it wasn’t like she was real anyway.

Still, she clearly expected some kind of response, so with one of her patented sweet, caring smiles, Cozy said, “You can’t deny Di’s been acting…strange lately. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Cozy then continued eating, satisfied that Silver found her answer acceptable. Cozy didn’t care what others thought, least of all Silver Spoon, but she found that if she didn’t answer them when she was spoken to every once in a while, they wouldn’t leave her alone. In spite of that, though, Cozy was vaguely aware that Silver was still glaring at her through the hazy blur that was her face.

“You say that like it isn’t totally concerning,” Silver said. “Something’s clearly wrong with her. I thought it was just the Chrysalis thing at first, but now I’m starting to think it might go a little beyond that.”

Cozy just shrugged and turned her attention away from the vague blur that was Silver Spoon to the crisp and clear peas, chicken and potatoes in front of her. Today was definitely a foggy day, and not a window day. Cozy found foggy days preferable to window days, as it was easier to ignore the others around her on foggy days. Window days were annoying because she could still see the dreams around her clearly; it was just that there was an invisible wall—like a window but not—between her and them.

“Hey Silver. Hey Cozy,” said another such dream walking up to their table veiled in a foggy blur.

“Hey Zipp. How’s your neck?” Silver asked.

For some reason, Cozy always found it amusing when two dreams talked to each other and smiled widely as Silver and Zipporwhil conversed.

“It’s fine, but…I heard the news. Silver, I’m so sorry.”

Silver tilted her head. “You’re sorry? About what?”

“About Diamond. She’s….” Zipporwhil put a hand to her mouth. At least, Cozy was pretty sure. It could be hard to tell on foggy days sometimes. “Oh…you don’t know,” Zipporwhil said.

“Know what, Zipp?” Silver said, clearly getting impatient.

“I thought maybe Di’s parents already told you. I only just found out now when I checked the news. Shit, I’m so sorry you had to find out this way!”

“Please, just tell me what’s going on, Zipp!”

“It would be better if you just checked the article on Equestria Daily’s website,” Zipporwhil said. “I’ll probably just get the details wrong.”

Silver Spoon took out her phone to do just that, and her curiosity piqued, Cozy Glow got up and moved around to look over her shoulder, Zipporwhil standing over the other. Silver opened the Google news tab and looked at the local section, scrolling through the top articles. She didn’t have to scroll far before Zipporwhil pointed to the screen.

“There. That’s it!” she exclaimed.

The article Zipporwhil pointed out made Silver audibly gasp, and Cozy raised an eyebrow. It was titled, Daughter of Barnyard Bargains’ CEO missing. There was a picture of Diamond Tiara underneath, likely taken from her Facebook or Instagram account.

Silver hastily opened the article and started reading. “‘Late last night, Diamond Tiara, fourteen-year-old daughter of Filthy Rich, owner and founder of locally-started superstore chain Barnyard Bargains, was reported missing. Although authorities initially suspected a simple runaway, the discovery of Tiara’s cell phone discarded in a parking lot at the corner of Castle Ave. and Queen St….’”

“Castle and Queen, isn’t that a few blocks away from the Sugarcube Corner?” Cozy asked, the gears in her head turning fast.

“Yeah, I think so,” Silver said, before she continued reading, “‘…have the police suspecting a kidnapping’?!” Silver sat back in her chair, running a hand through her hair in disbelief. “Oh my god….”

Cozy just continued to read the article on her own phone, which featured a quote from the chief of the CPD, who stated that no ransom or demands from the kidnappers had been received as of yet but sticking by the department’s official statement that the kidnapping is likely motivated by extortion for money. There was also a statement from Filthy Rich himself, who pleaded for the safe return of his daughter, as well as a statement from Diamond’s mother, Spoiled Rich, who criticized the inability of the police to catch the apparent criminals responsible.

“I don’t believe it…” Silver muttered. She sounded on the verge of tears.

Only one thought went through Cozy’s mind at that moment. That Diamond’s disappearance was no random kidnapping or even an attempt to extort a wealthy CEO out of a few million dollars. No: what had happened to Diamond was more personal…and more permanent.

“I think it’s clear who’s really responsible for this,” Cozy said. “And I don’t think Di’s merely kidnapped.”

Silver looked up at Cozy, who almost couldn’t see the tears in her eyes through the blurry fog obscuring her face. “You don’t mean she’s…?” Silver hiccupped. “No! How can you even suggest that?!”

“Come on, Silver. You remember what happened the last time Diamond and Chrysalis talked, right?” Cozy asked. “What Chrysalis said she’d do if Diamond tried to mess with her again?”

“Oh my god you’re right,” Silver said, her voice breaking as tears started to flow. “Dammit, w-why couldn’t she just listen to us? We told her it was a bad idea and now….” Silver’s hands curled into fists. “Chrysalis…. I’m going to make that psychotic bitch pay!”

“If that girl’s really behind Diamond’s…disappearance, shouldn’t we call the police?” Zipporwhil asked.

“It won’t do any good,” Cozy calmly explained. “They won’t believe a kid like Chrysalis would be responsible for murdering Diamond. Not without proof, which we don’t have.”

Cozy, of course, knew better. Some adults were smart enough to put two and two together in situations like this, but fortunately—for Chrysalis and for her—most of them preferred to turn a blind eye to it. To pretend that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them. Chrysalis certainly had a strong motive to permanently silence Diamond Tiara, and Cozy suspected it was well within her means. But right now, Cozy needed Silver Spoon to believe it was unthinkable.

“What about the video?” Silver asked.

“It doesn’t prove anything. To be honest, I still don’t know why Di thought she could blackmail Chrysalis with it.”

Still, it was evidently enough for Chrysalis to kill over. There was definitely something there, but Silver didn’t need to know that, either.

“Well Cozy, what do you suggest then?” Silver asked.

“We need more information,” Cozy said with a sunny grin.

“Diamond already tried to dig into Chrysalis’s life and didn’t find shit. What makes you think you’ll do any better?”

“I’ve got ways that are different from Di’s.”

Of course, Cozy had no intention of getting dirt or evidence of any kind on Chrysalis, but a cute girlish smile was all it took to keep Silver ignorant of that. Cozy found that nobody tended to question her if she acted cute enough.

Taking a breath, Silver said, “Okay, I guess it couldn’t hurt to let you try.”

“Great! Thanks for trusting me with this, Silvy. You’re a good friend.”

This too was a lie. Silver Spoon never really thought much of Cozy, which never particularly bothered her, but now Cozy was considering moving on to greener pastures. Diamond Tiara and her friends had been a fun distraction, but it was clear even before the events of yesterday that Diamond was slipping. She and Silver had been useful for Cozy Glow to camouflage herself as just another ordinary girl capable of making friends, but for some time now Cozy had her sights set on something better than mere camouflage. Diamond’s disappearance now was a sign that it was finally time for her to make her move.

It had all started weeks ago with Button’s betrayal and Diamond and Chrysalis’s falling out. Before that day, Chrysalis was just another foggy face that blended in with all the other dreams that were people. But then, Chrysalis had grabbed Diamond by the throat and had threatened…no, promised Diamond that she would kill her if she crossed her again. Even claimed to have killed before.

Right then, Cozy knew that Chrysalis hadn’t been bluffing or lying because that’s when she had changed. It had been another foggy day like today, but when Chrysalis made her threat all of a sudden Cozy could see her clearly. No blurry fog, and no invisible wall obscuring her. She had become real.

From that point on, Cozy knew she’d one day give up the charade of friendship with Diamond. She was going to finally have a real friend in Chrysalis.

As it was Thursday, Chrysalis had her weekly meet-up with the movie club in their usual classroom. Something was different about the atmosphere this time, though: When Chrysalis first entered, the other club members had been talking in low murmurs but suddenly went silent when they noticed her. Juniper Montage and the others had always been warm and welcoming to Chrysalis, eagerly sharing their favorite movies with her. Today though, something about their countenance towards her seemed somehow colder. Even Star Tracker wasn’t his usual friendly self.

The hour she usually spent with the movie club always seemed to go by too fast but today it hadn’t gone fast enough. Maybe they were all having a bit of an off day. Considering what Chrysalis had heard from Sweetie Belle during their afternoon class together, it made sense. It was for that same reason Chrysalis wasn’t terribly surprised to find Cozy Glow waiting for her alone outside the movie club’s usual room.

“Hey, Chrys. You got a minute to talk?” she asked.

“Sure, I guess,” Chrysalis said, mildly confused but nevertheless walking alongside Cozy as the two made to leave school for the day.

The Cozy Glow she had known when she’d been a part of Diamond Tiara’s clique had been bubbly and almost manic in her positivity. The Cozy Glow in front of her now was subdued, almost melancholy. Chrysalis wondered whether the girl she was seeing now was the real Cozy.

“I take it you know about Di?” Cozy asked after a short silence.

Daughter of Barnyard Bargains’ CEO missing. That had been the title of the article Sweetie had shown her and the others. Scootaloo had suggested it was only a matter of time before they found her body at the bottom of some river, while Sweetie and even Chrysalis had told her that was too much. Apple Bloom had just been quiet.

“Yeah,” Chrysalis said. She hadn’t talked with any of Diamond’s friends in a while, but she still cared enough to ask, “You and Silver holding up okay?”

“I’m fine. Silver’s taking it pretty hard though,” Cozy answered. After some hesitation, she then added, “She thinks you’re responsible for it.”

“What? That’s insane!”

“I know, right? You and Di had your issues, sure, but why would anyone think you’re a murderer?”

“I... I don’t know.” Chrysalis’s voice nearly caught in her throat. Because the truth was, anyone who truly knew her knew that was exactly what she was.

“I understand why she’d think that, though. I mean, you were probably the last person to see Diamond before she vanished.”

That thought sent a cold chill running through Chrysalis’s entire body.

“And…she was blackmailing you, after all.” Then with a tiny frown, Cozy said, “I’m sorry for the role I played in that, by the way. For the record, I did try to talk her out of it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Chrysalis said. Cozy could hardly be blamed for Diamond’s plan: She was only a pawn. Chrysalis had used (and disposed of) plenty just like her in her time as queen.

“Here, let me make it right.” Cozy then pulled out a small USB thumb drive and held it out, offering for Chrysalis to take it. “The video Diamond tried to blackmail you with. I pulled it off of YouTube and TikTok. Now, the only other copy is with Diamond and, well….” A ghost of a grin then appeared on Cozy’s face. “She won’t be showing it to anyone any time soon, right?”

Chrysalis took the thumb drive, not entirely sure how to feel about Cozy’s last comment. “I appreciate it, Cozy, but aren’t you afraid you’re going to catch hell from Silver Spoon for this?”

“That’s okay. To be honest, ever since you and Di first had your falling out, I’d been considering leaving her myself,” Cozy said. “The business with the blackmail yesterday was what finally made me decide to go through with it.”

At that, Chrysalis smiled. She remembered her last talk with Diamond at the mall the Saturday she’d left her for good. She remembered Cozy Glow looking lost and had even advised her to get out of Diamond’s clique as well. Her words must have stuck with Cozy, and it made Chrysalis glad.

“I think that’s the right choice, Cozy,” she said.

With a sigh and the saddest puppy dog eyes Chrysalis had ever seen on a human face, Cozy said, “Yeah, I just don’t know how I’m gonna break it to Silvy. She’s already lost one friend, after all….”

Chrysalis nodded. It was a complicated situation. Both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were toxic—there was no question about that, and Cozy had every right to put some distance between herself and them. But Silver was surely going through a difficult time and needed a real friend now more than ever. Still, at the end of the day it was Cozy’s decision.

“Well, whatever you decide to do, if you need somebody in your corner just let me know,” Chrysalis said.

“Thanks, Chrys,” Cozy said, one of her wider than normal smiles returning to her face. “People like us need to stick together, right?

Chrysalis cocked her head to one side. “‘People like us?’”

“Yeah. I’ve had my own share of bad rumors circulating about me, but that was before my family moved here.”

Chrysalis nodded before she realized she had no idea what Cozy was talking about. “Wait, back up. What does that have to do with us?”

With a curious frown, Cozy said, “Oh, I thought you knew! I’m so, so sorry!”

“Knew what?”

With wide, almost dead eyes, Cozy said, “It’s not just Silver who thinks you offed Diamond, y’know. The whole school is saying it.”

The world around Chrysalis seemed to fall away, and she was overcome by an inexplicable sense of vertigo. Right then, she wanted to lash out at Cozy, to call her a liar and expose whatever little scheme she had ruminating in her brain. But then she remembered the strange movie club meeting she had just now. The weird looks people she’d thought of as her friends had given her. The fact that they had been talking in hushed voices right up until she entered the room, bringing complete silence with her.

“Why…why would anyone think that?” Chrysalis asked, her voice catching in her throat.

“Everyone knows there was something going on between you and Diamond. Not like that means anything, of course. You wouldn’t be the first person to consider killing Diamond Tiara, after all.” With a casual shrug, Cozy said, “Who knows? Maybe you just look like the type.”

Maybe you look like a killer, was what Cozy was really saying once Chrysalis read between the lines.

“You are a killer, remember?” resonated the voice of Queen, finally making herself known after nearly a full day of silence. “You can act the part of Saint Chrysalis, the Redeemed all you want, but it won’t change what you are, what you did.”

Chrysalis did her best to shut her out. “You…don’t think I killed her too, do you, Cozy?”

With a sugary sweet smile, Cozy just said, “Don’t worry, I’m on your side, Chrys. I’ll let you know if I need your help dealing with Silver Spoon just so long as you let me know if you need any help dealing with…anyone else.”

Cozy and Chrysalis were outside the front door of the school now, and with a little wave goodbye, Cozy started on her own way.

“Cozy, wait a second,” Chrysalis said, and Cozy turned around with a patient smile. “What kind of stuff were people saying about you? Before you moved here like you said.”

Hesitation was clear on Cozy’s face, and Chrysalis was about to tell her that it was okay if she didn’t want to say. Then Cozy said, “They were saying I killed my mother,” and walked away without another word.

“Yeah, that’s definitely a little weird,” Scootaloo said after Chrysalis had told her and the others about her conversation with Cozy Glow.

The four girls were all having ice cream at the Sugarcube Corner Café. The other three girls were already seated by the time Chrysalis arrived, owing her lateness to her unexpected talk with Cozy Glow after her weekly movie club session. They were seated at what had become their usual table: the very same table where Chrysalis had met Diamond Tiara the night before. She decided not to tell the others just how uncomfortable it made her.

“Yeah, that Cozy girl always struck me as a little…off, y’know?” Sweetie Belle said.

Chrysalis nodded, remembering the times when she was a part of Diamond’s clique, and the moments she hadn’t been able to taste any emotions from Cozy at all. And yet, the emotions she had tasted from her during their most recent encounter seemed to be genuine.

“She’s definitely weird, but then again so was I when we first met, right?” Chrysalis said.

“Chrys, you’re still weird, but that’s why we love ya,” Scootaloo said.

“Tch, fair enough,” Chrysalis chuckled. “But my point is, I think Cozy was being honest with me. If she’s serious about getting a fresh start away from Diamond’s friend group, I want to do what I can to help her out.”

“And that’s fine, just…don’t expect us to welcome her into our own group with open arms,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Yeah, like…good on her if she’s turning over a new leaf and stuff, but things would get super awkward with her in our group,” Scootaloo said.

“That’s okay, I never said I wanted to invite her to the table,” said Chrysalis, still thinking about that conversation. “Why do you think people at her old school said she killed her mother?”

“I don’t know, dude. Kids come up with all kinds of crazy rumors. Apple Bloom could tell you that.” Scootaloo tilted her head to the girl in question, who for her part didn’t even seem to be listening to the conversation. Spoon in hand, she idly played with the ice cream in her bowl. It had been so long since she touched it that it was starting to melt.

“There’s always a little bit of truth to rumors, though,” Sweetie said, continuing the conversation without her. “My guess is Cozy’s mother died in childbirth. It’s sad but it happens. Could also explain why she’s so….”

“Weird?”

“Yeah.”

Chrysalis, however, was no longer paying attention to this conversation. She looked at Apple Bloom and asked, “What’s on your mind, Bloomie?”

Apple Bloom didn’t look at Chrysalis, but at the whole table. “You don’t think it’s true, do you? What people are saying?”

For one brief but gut-wrenching moment, Chrysalis thought that Apple Bloom was asking whether Chrysalis was the one responsible for Diamond’s disappearance.

Then Sweetie answered, “Of course not, Bloomie. There’s no way that Diamond’s dead.”

“You said so yourself: ‘There’s always a little bit of truth to rumors.’” Apple Bloom argued, her tone dead.

“Well, not this one.”

“But you don’t know that!”

“Jeez, Bloomie. You sure are worried about a girl who regularly made our lives miserable,” Scootaloo deadpanned. “Don’t still have feelings for her, do you? Because gross.”

Tasting the sudden jolt of turmoil coming from Apple Bloom, Chrysalis slammed the table and glared hard at her friend. “Dammit, Scootaloo! For once in your life could you not say the first fucking bullshit that pops into your head?!”

“Jesus, Chrys. Where’s this coming—?"

“Scoots,” Sweetie said, calmly but full of authority. “I love you, but you’re way out of line. Please shut the fuck up, okay?”

“Okay! Sorry, jeez.”

“I told you before, I’m over her. The person I cared about was already long gone before Diamond disappeared,” Apple Bloom said. “Still…I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

She glanced at Chrysalis, and her analytical mind went into overdrive. She thinks I killed her. Just like everyone else. She knows what I really am. She’s always known! Everyone’s always known!

“Chrys?” It would seem it was Apple Bloom’s turn to snap Chrysalis back to reality. “What’s bothering you?”

“Aside from the fact I was probably the last one to see her—right here at this table no less?” Chrysalis sighed. Might as well just get it out there. “You guys heard the other rumors going around about Diamond’s disappearance?”

Her friends all exchanged a look.

“We…didn’t want to say anything,” Sweetie said.

Chrysalis leaned forward in her seat. “Please. What did you hear?”

After exchanging another look with her friends, Apple Bloom said, “After final period ended and you were heading to your movie club, we overheard some girls in our class talking about how…how one of them saw you try to kill Diamond weeks ago at the mall. Said that you choked her until her face turned blue. That….” Apple Bloom stopped, but Chrysalis silently urged her to continue. “That when you saw an opportunity to finish the job last night, you took it.”

Chrysalis leaned back in her chair and ran a hand through her hair.

“I would’ve decked that bitch in the face if these two hadn’t held me back,” Scootaloo said. “But I made sure to tell her she was full of shit. I mean, who goes around lying about shit like that?”

Chrysalis’s voice caught in her throat. “There’s always a little truth to rumors,” she muttered.

“What was that, Chrys?”

“She wasn’t lying. Not entirely,” Chrysalis said, clearing her throat. “When I confronted Diamond at the mall the day I helped Sweetie and Button, I sorta…lost control. Let the old me slip out a little.” Seeing the nervous, uncertain looks on the faces of her friends around her, Chrysalis back pedalled. “But I swear, I never wanted to kill her! When I said I left our meeting last night without doing anything, I was telling the truth.”

“Of course,” Apple Bloom said, and the other two nodded.

Still, Chrysalis could see the doubt in their eyes. Apple Bloom had already witnessed Chrysalis “lose control” once before when she’d questioned Zipporwhil. They probably believed that Chrysalis never wanted to kill Diamond Tiara, but…she could have lost control again. Could have tried to dissuade Diamond from blackmailing her with a little bit of force. Except this time, she could have squeezed her throat just a little harder; a little longer…long enough that Diamond wouldn’t have taken another breath.

Chrysalis suddenly felt something nudge her foot under the table. Do the Cakes have a cat or small dog or something? Chrysalis wondered.

But then she heard a voice. A familiar voice she hadn’t yet heard during her time on earth. “There’s always a little truth to rumors, right Oracle?”

The voice was under the table. Chrysalis looked between Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. All of them continued to talk as if they hadn’t heard anything. Chrysalis still felt that something under the table, and as she nudged it with her foot, she realized it was still. Still and wet.

Slowly, cautiously, Chrysalis leaned back and took a peek under the table. The eyes of a male pony with a coat of onyx and a mane of neon green looked back up at her from the darkness below. They were dead and lifeless. His neck was twisted and hung at an unnatural angle where Chrysalis had once snapped it with her telekinesis.

There were other bodies piled beside him. Mares and stallions—some with royal barding, others without—as well as other creatures. Griffons, zebras, even other changelings. All of them were stacked in a pile that stretched high above the ashen earth below. At the top sat Chrysalis and her friends at the table from the Sugarcube Corner, still chatting amicably about their day.

Chrysalis’s heart jumped up into her throat as the whole pile shifted and wobbled. She clung to the café table to keep the whole thing from falling off the high stack of corpses, her friends with it. Apple Bloom and the others shifted with the pile but didn’t seem to notice.

“Be careful,” said the corpse of a construction pony she vaguely remembered keeping in a cocoon and bleeding dry over the course of days. He looked like he had when she had been finished with him: a withered empty husk.

“Be careful,” his body said as the pile shifted again. “The foundation isn’t very stable.”

Chrysalis just tried to hold on to the table and focus on the carefree smiling faces of her friends. Even as the piled bodies continued to shift and speak under them. Their mouths didn’t move, and their voices were hoarse, like the final gasses escaping a body long after it expired.

“Please keep your workspace tidy,” said a mare in simple clothes. Chrysalis figured out what she’d done to her when she noticed the fleshy umbilical cord still attached to her. “Don’t forget to throw away anything you don’t need.”

Chrysalis shut her eyes, begging for the nightmare to stop.

“Why should your nightmare stop when mine is just beginning?”

At the sound of the familiar voice, Chrysalis opened her eyes and saw that she was no longer sharing the table atop her pile of victims with her three friends. Diamond Tiara now sat across from her—at the same place she’d sat the other night—and the sight of the girl’s appearance nearly sent Chrysalis tumbling off of her self-made tower.

Her skin was pale and clammy, her face and body hideously bloated and wet, her hair dripping. Chrysalis thought she could see maggots wriggling in her ears.

“No. No no no no I didn’t kill you! I didn’t!” Chrysalis exclaimed.

Diamond’s corpse opened its mouth and dirty river water mixed with dead leaves came pouring out. “You might as well have. I’d have had no reason to come out that night if not for you.”

Chrysalis desperately shook her head as Diamond’s corpse continued. “You just had to get the last word in at the mall, didn’t you? Just had to goad me into coming after you. I’d have left well enough alone if you hadn’t needed to satisfy your own ego.”

“That’s not true,” Chrysalis said. The tears welling in her eyes said otherwise.

“Oh, don’t be so upset. It’s not like it matters.” Chrysalis looked down and saw that every single body in her pile was Diamond Tiara. They all said at once, “What’s one more body amongst hundreds?”

With a horrified shout, Chrysalis jolted awake in her bed, breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. Another night, another nightmare. Chrysalis checked the time on her phone. It was a little past five in the morning. She would need to be up in another hour and change to get ready for school. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep now.

Still wearing her pajamas, Chrysalis stepped out of her bedroom and made her way down the hall to the kitchen. She was surprised to discover that she wasn’t the only one awake.

“Morning, Chrys,” said Sable, seated at the kitchen table nursing a mug of coffee.

“Oh, hey Sable. What are you doing up at this hour?”

“SIREN business,” Sable said with a yawn. The man looked like he would rather be in bed, and Chrysalis couldn’t blame him. As usual, he was still up working after Chrysalis had gone to bed the previous night, and now here he was awake before Chrysalis before the crack of dawn. Didn’t he ever sleep?

“Yeah? What’s new with SIREN these days?” Chrysalis asked as she went over to the countertop where the coffeemaker was and poured herself a cup.

“Just overseeing some early morning drills Troubleshoes is going through with the ATG,” Sable took a sip of his coffee. “That and I wanted to inspect the foundation of the new residence Sunset’s family is building on their property. Construction crew put it down last week and I want to make sure it’ll work as a barracks.” He shook his head in amusement. “They wondered why we recommended an earthquake-resistant foundation when this part of California doesn’t have an active fault line. Didn’t want to tell them that it’s due to ordnance storage standards.”

Chrysalis grunted an acknowledgement as she sat down at the table beside Sable, her own coffee in hand.

“So, what’s got you up this early?” Sable asked. “Let me guess: more nightmares?” Chrysalis nodded, and Sable reached over and patted her hand. “I’m sorry, Chrys. I wish there was more Tia and I could do to help.”

“Honestly, you guys are doing great,” Chrysalis said, taking a sip of her own brown morning juice. As she did, she thought of a way Sable might be able to provide insight. “Actually, do you mind if I ask you a kind of uncomfortable question?”

With a shrug and a sip, Sable said, “If you think it’ll help.”

“When you were in the Army, you’ve…killed people, right?”

Sable frowned and looked at her dead on. “Yes.”

Unable to continue looking into the man’s eyes, Chrysalis looked down into her drink. “I have quite the body count myself. Recently something happened that—”

“What happened?” Sable asked, all of a sudden sounding way more awake and alert.

“Nothing. Well, not nothing; you remember Diamond Tiara?” Chrysalis asked, and Sable nodded. “Well, she went missing the other night, and…people at school think I killed her.” Sable didn’t answer her, and a troubled look crossed his face that made Chrysalis quickly add, “I didn’t, by the way.”

Suddenly remembering himself, Sable said, “Oh, I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insinuate that’s what I was thinking, I was just…my mind was elsewhere. Please, continue.”

“Right. I know I shouldn’t let it bother me this much—it’s all just meaningless gossip—but it got me thinking….” Chrysalis tried to vocalize what she was feeling but couldn’t come up with more than a frustrated groan.

Fortunately, Sable seemed to have her figured out. “You can’t help but see the truth in their accusations because you really do have blood on your hands, even if it isn’t Diamond’s.”

Chrysalis nodded, and she thought of her friends, all seated on top of the wobbling tower of those she’d murdered in her previous life. The foundation isn’t very stable.

“How did I ever think I could have friends in this world? I must have been an idiot!” Chrysalis said with a single bitter laugh. “I’m a murderer! Even if I go the rest of my life without so much as crushing a fly, I’ll still have enough blood on my hands to last several more mortal lifetimes. How can someone like that have innocent friendships?”

“Well, I have to admit, for a while after I got out, I didn’t have many friends myself,” Sable said. “What friends I did have were vets like me. Many of them had taken lives in the line of duty themselves. Hell, it’s only been since I’ve met Celestia that I’ve started hanging around people who’ve never served, and you know what? I don’t feel like I’m any less worthy of their friendship for the things I’ve done in the line of duty.”

“That’s just the problem though: the things I’ve done weren’t in service to anyone but myself.” Chrysalis took a trembling breath. “And the ponies I’d killed weren’t just enemy soldiers. There were plenty of innocents too. Ponies I’d killed because…because it was convenient, or because I simply wanted to punish someone and didn’t much care who.”

Sable closed his eyes and let out a long breath through his nose. Chrysalis thought he was disappointed in her. That she had gone back to being a monster in his eyes. He then said, “I killed a kid.”

Chrysalis looked at him, realizing that he wasn’t judging her. How could he, when it was so clear to Chrysalis now that he was constantly judging himself?

“Yeah,” Sable said, seeing the look of disbelief on her face. “She was even younger than you’re supposed to be. But she was an enemy combatant, a child soldier strapped with explosives. She was scared...and I didn’t have to know her language to know that she was crying for help. But I was a soldier. I did what I had to do to protect my life. I still have nightmares about it….”

Chrysalis just stared at Sable, seeing him in a new light. “Sable…that’s awful, but…killing in self-defense isn’t the same as—”

“No, it is the same! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Sable exclaimed. “It doesn’t matter if it’s in defense of yourself or your country, or simply because you get your kicks from it: Killing is always wrong. But I’ve always believed that if you don’t move on and try to live your life, you’re doing a disservice to those that can’t do the same.”

The two of them sat there in silence for a long time. Eventually, Chrysalis thought to take a sip of the coffee in front of her, only to find that it had gone cold.

“Okay, I really have to go now,” Sable said standing up. He then put an arm around Chrysalis’s shoulder and pulled her close to his side. “I’m sorry what I told you probably didn’t bring you much comfort, but it’s the simple truth. You and me, we’re going to be haunted by the things we’ve done for the rest of our lives. But that doesn’t mean we can give up on trying to live them to our fullest. Okay?”

In spite of how shitty she still felt, Chrysalis leaned into Sable and said, “Okay. Thanks, Dad.”

With a smile, Sable left out the door to the townhouse, leaving Chrysalis alone in the darkness of early morning.

Sable didn’t even realize he’d been crying until he got into the car and needed to wipe his eyes so he could check the mirrors. It hadn’t been the first time Chrysalis had called him “Dad,” but it was the first time she’d done so easily. It drove home just how far she’d come from the days when the best she could do was “Sable,” and how she’d been afraid of being touched, let alone held.

Sure, Chrysalis still had regular nightmares, and yes, she was particularly beaten down by guilt this morning. But recovery from trauma was not a straight path; Sable himself knew this better than most. Chrysalis had made amazing progress after little more than a month with them, and it had never been clearer to Sable than that morning. He only hoped that Chrysalis would be able to see it herself.

Upon arriving at school that morning, Chrysalis was hit by an uncanny sense of déjà vu. She quickly realized that this was attributed to the sour feelings of discomfort she could taste from her peers—it tasted the same as when she started her very first day here. She had been a tall and intimidating stranger to the school then, but over time people in her classes had warmed up to her and she had…well, maybe not friends exactly, but many friendly acquaintances. Now though, those same students she’d exchange smiles and waves with on a daily basis kept their distance, and Chrysalis felt like it was her first day all over again.

More than once, she’d happen across a group of students speaking in hushed voices, and she’d realize when they suddenly fell silent at her approach that they had just been talking about her. It was a deeply uncomfortable feeling. At least Star Tracker still talked to her in their first period class, but even his smile seemed subdued.

“Hey, Star?” Chrysalis started as their class together started to empty out. “You…haven’t by chance heard what people have been saying about me, have you?”

Star didn’t answer her, and Chrysalis had to swallow the small lump in her throat before it could properly form. Perhaps he simply didn’t hear her.

“Star? You listening?”

“Hey Star!” another boy’s voice called out from across the hall.

It was one of Star’s friends; a brown-haired boy with the makings of a mustache beginning to form above his lip. Chrysalis had only met him once—they didn’t have any classes together—but she was pretty sure his name was Soda Pop. Another boy with large thick glasses was standing next to him. This one Chrysalis hadn’t met, but she’d seen Star and Soda hanging around with him before.

Looking at Chrysalis apologetically, Star said, “I’ve gotta go. Sorry, Chrys.”

Not waiting for her to say anything, Star turned and joined his friends. Chrysalis knew she should have just headed to her next class, but something compelled her to follow the trio of boys. For the entire morning—and indeed, some of the previous afternoon—Chrysalis seemed to exist only on the fringes of other people’s conversations. They’d stop talking as soon as she arrived and wouldn’t start talking until (presumably) after she was gone. Chrysalis was tired of it.

So, keeping her distance and doing her best to blend into the crowd, Chrysalis stalked Star Tracker and his friends to their lockers and posted up in the alcove of a door leading to a storage closet within earshot. Then, leaning casually against it and pretending to check her phone, Chrysalis tuned out all of the other voices in the hallway and focused in on Star and his friends.

“…I’m serious, man. That girl’s dangerous. It’s a bad idea to keep hanging around her.” It was Soda’s voice.

Star replied, “Do you really think she did what people are saying?” He didn’t sound convinced, but Chrysalis wasn’t pleased that he felt he needed to ask at all.

“I don’t know if she killed Diamond Tiara, exactly. I think she’s just got her tied up in her basement or something.”

“I dunno, I heard she tried to kill Zipporwhil too,” said the kid with glasses. “Same day Diamond went missing. Apparently, Zipp barely escaped with her life, and she’s got the bruises on her neck to prove it.”

“Damn, Chips. Really?!” exclaimed Soda. “How hasn’t that crazy bitch been suspended yet?”

“Nepotism, dude. You know her Mom’s the former principal, right? Hell, her aunt is the current principal!”

“Eesh. That tracks.” Soda then turned to Star. “Didn’t you date her for a little bit, Star? Did she seem…y’know, murder-y then?”

“We just went on one date, but no. She didn’t have serial killer vibes or anything,” Star answered. Chrysalis’s heart then split in two when he followed up with, “There was definitely something off about her, though. Who knows? She could have just been very good at hiding it. People like that do exist, after all.”

Chrysalis had to look away. Seeing Star Tracker’s cute face was suddenly very painful at that moment.

“I just feel bad for those poor girls she hangs out with,” said the kid with glasses—Chips, according to Soda.

“You mean Apple Bloom and the others?” Star asked.

“Yeah, man. They’re absolutely terrified of her! They know she’s a killer as much as anyone.”

“Really? How do you figure?”

“It’s all in the eyes, man. I can tell! The only reason they still hang out with her is because they’re scared they’ll end up like Diamond Tiara if they try to leave her.”

Chrysalis couldn’t listen to it anymore, and stormed off to her next period class, the other students in the hall giving her a wide berth as she fought against the lump growing bigger in her throat. It was the knowledge that even Star Tracker—someone she still thought of as a friend even though they tried dating and it didn’t work out—seemed to believe the rumors about her at least a little bit that got her. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with what Star’s bespectacled friend had said about her friends.

That Chips kid was totally full of shit, Chrysalis told herself. Kids like him who always acted like they knew everything are typically the ones who know the least. He didn’t know her friends the way she did!

Full of it or not, what if he is right, though? Asked the little voice in her head, taking form in her shadow as a familiar insectoid equine shape. Your friends certainly haven’t treated you the same since yesterday.

Chrysalis just tried to ignore what could only be Queen’s voice and thoughts, but it was getting harder as the day went on.

Cozy Glow didn’t particularly feel like going to her second period English class today, so when Silver Spoon asked to meet her out behind the school, Cozy decided that she might as well. Silver wasn’t the only one waiting for her when she exited the doors into the cold autumn air. Rover and a couple of his buddies were leaning against the wall smoking cigarettes. Today was a window day, so she could see their faces, albeit through the invisible wall between her and the world around her. The shorter of Rover’s friends offered Silver a drag, but she shook her head. That was when she noticed Cozy approaching.

“Hey. You find out anything else about Chrys?” Silver asked.

“Nothing we didn’t already know,” said Cozy.

“Figures.” Taking another look at the boy who offered her a cig, Silver decided to take it after all. Inhaling deeply, Silver coughed hard and handed it back.

“I’ve been talking to Rover,” Silver said. “He’s also interested in getting justice for Di, and his friends are willing to help out.”

Rover nodded, “That disloyal bitch is gonna pay for what she did to my Diamond!”

Cozy kept her expression neutral, when in fact she was rather annoyed by this turn of events, even if she wasn’t surprised. She figured Silver would keep Rover and his idiots around, if only to make herself feel safer after what happened to Diamond. It would make what Cozy was planning difficult, but not impossible…with a little help.

“We just need to get Chrysalis away from her friends, and then we can ask her exactly what she did to Di,” Silver said. “Rover, that’s where you and your friends come in.”

Cracking his knuckles, Rover grinned and said, “I’ve been waiting a long time for a little payback!”

“Actually, I don’t think force will be necessary to get a confession out of Chrys,” Cozy said, hoping to mitigate the situation somewhat. Silver and Rover both gave her confused looks, each of them seeming ready to chew her out, so Cozy elaborated. “I managed to talk to Chrysalis yesterday and I think I actually managed to gain her trust.”

Silver raised an eyebrow. “Really? How’d you manage that?”

“I told her I was thinking about leaving you and Diamond and wanted her help.”

All of the best lies were based in truth, or so Cozy had heard. She liked to take it a step further, though. Rather than sprinkle crumbs of truth throughout her lies, Cozy preferred to tell only the truth…at least, in just the right way for others to think what she wanted them to think. It was just as good as lying, Cozy found, but much harder to get caught. Everything she’d said to Chrysalis the previous day, for instance, had been one-hundred percent true, as was everything she was telling Silver and Rover now.

“If you just give me a chance to talk with her again, I’m pretty sure I can get Chrysalis to be truly honest…about everything.”

“I still wanna smash her smug, disloyal face,” Rover grumbled.

“Trust me, I’d very much like to see that too, but I think it’s worth it to let Cozy try,” Silver said, looking at her—for the first time—like she was a trusted friend. “If there’s a chance Di is still alive, Chrys will at least know what happened to her.” Silver’s face turned hard and serious. It made Cozy want to laugh. “And if it’s true that Chrys really did end her life, then we’d have proof we can actually show people.”

“Shit, we’d be goddamn heroes!” Rover exclaimed.

Cozy put a hand on Silver’s shoulder and said, “Thanks for giving me this chance, Silvy.” Then, seeing another opportunity to use the truth to twist her meaning, Cozy said with an earnest grin, “I promise you won’t live to regret this!”

Feeling positively giddy about the afternoon to come, Cozy spent the rest of her time hanging out with Silver and Rover in her own little world. It had been a lonely life, living in a world where she was the only real person. It wouldn’t have been if testing the boundaries of her fake reality wasn’t so difficult. Cozy still occasionally thought about the first time she’d tested her world’s boundaries when she was a child no older than six.

Her family had just installed a bird feeder in their backyard, and Cozy had watched the little feathered creatures come to and from the feeder with the same detachment that she’d felt for everything else. Then one day, more out of boredom than anything, she’d picked up a small rock from the garden and tossed it at the feeder. It had made a satisfying clink sound and all of the birds at the feeder took off in a flurry of feathers. She remembered how good it had felt: for that brief moment, something she had done had managed to affect the fake world around her.

For days she’d spend hours in the backyard, watching the bird feeder and waiting for the birds to return, only to send them flying away with another rock. Already it was not as gratifying the second time. That had been when the idea to cast the next stone at one of the birds themselves rather than just the feeder came to her.

She still remembered the first time she’d hit one. Rather than a loud clink it had made a soft thud, and rather than fly away in a flurry of flapping wings the bird had practically exploded in feathers! The sight had been incredible, and little Cozy had wasted no time inspecting her work. The bird lay in the grass, its neck broken and its limbs twitching, still desperately clinging to the life fading from its tiny body. Again, Cozy had been filled with immense gratification. I did this! To Cozy, the bird looked more real in its final moments than anything else ever had.

It had been the following week and several murdered birds later that Cozy had been caught: her mother had come rushing out the moment Cozy had nailed another bird, yelling, “WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING, COZY?!”

Her mother had tried to explain to her that what she’d done was a Very Bad Thing, but Cozy wasn’t terribly interested. She had calmly explained to her mother that the birds weren’t real; that by throwing rocks at them she was making them real. Cozy should have expected her mother not to understand: she wasn’t real either, after all.

The following day, her mother had taken Cozy to see a special “head doctor,” and she had talked to Cozy for a long time about the birds she threw rocks at and how they made her feel. Afterwards, Cozy listened to the head doctor speak with her mother and heard a lot of words she didn’t understand, like “derealization disorder” and “antisocial personality disorder.” Ever since that day, Cozy was made to have regular sessions with the head doctor, as well as occasionally eat some small objects that looked like candy but tasted horrible.

As more time went on, Cozy had become more and more frustrated. Her mother had been watching her like a hawk, making sure she wasn’t throwing any more rocks at birds. It made Cozy angry. How could her mother do this? Couldn’t she see it was the only way Cozy had any meaningful interaction with this fake world?

It had been about two years later when Cozy had finally hit the last straw. Her mother and father had both sat down with her and told her that she was going to have a little brother or sister. Cozy remembered feeling furious. How could they do this to her? Didn’t they realize that a new baby would be no more real than anything else? Cozy was already the only real person! What did they need some fake baby for?!

Cozy decided that night that she would teach them a lesson: let the two fake things that called themselves her parents know how she felt. She had taken all of her Micro Machines out of her toy chest and set them up at the top of the stairs after she heard her parents go to bed (this, too, they were always yelling at her to clean up).

She hadn’t intended for the tumble her mother had taken in the early morning darkness to be fatal. She just wanted her (or her father, she honestly didn’t care which) to hurt. But when she heard the scream and series of loud thumps, she was mildly surprised to leave her room and find her mother lying in a heap at the foot of the stairs. Still in her pajamas, Cozy had silently walked down the stairs to get a closer look at her handiwork.

Her mother’s neck was broken, and she lay still, the rest of her body not responding to her commands as she gasped for breath. It had been so long since the last time Cozy had thrown rocks at the birds, she almost didn’t make the connection until she realized she was feeling the same sense of gratification. I did this. Like with the birds, her mother looked more real now than she ever had before, and it made Cozy smile, causing her mother’s eyes to grow wide with horror even as life left them.

That was when she heard her father scream, and for a moment Cozy thought she was going to get into trouble like she had with the birds, but her father had rushed right past her and knelt by her mother, before scrambling for his phone. Before Cozy knew it, an ambulance had arrived, filling the house with flashing orange lights, to take her mother away. Cozy and her father had ridden with them to the hospital, but it hadn’t been long after they arrived when a doctor came out of the emergency room and told them sadly that they couldn’t save her mother. Her father had cried and held her, but Cozy didn’t feel particularly bad. Her mother and the baby she’d been carrying hadn’t been real anyways: It was no great loss.

Cozy had been allowed to stay home from school that day, and with no mother to stop her, Cozy realized she could finally throw rocks at the birds around the feeder again. Standing over the first bird she’d hit in two years, Cozy realized that they really were the same as her mother. Just as helpless. Just as fake. It had been around that time she had realized that her father had been watching her from the window.

The way he’d looked at her was unlike any way he’d ever looked at her before. It was like he wasn’t looking at his daughter, but some horrifying monster from his darkest nightmares. Unbeknownst to Cozy, her father had realized that Cozy was looking at the bird she’d killed the same way he’d found her looking at her mother, and for that brief horrible moment he knew exactly what his daughter really was…what she’d really done. Then he’d poured himself a very stiff drink and kept drinking. He drank until he forgot all about his daughter’s true nature, and continued to drink for years after, until the woman who was now Cozy’s stepmother came into his life and helped him get clean.

To this day, Cozy was still regularly seeing the therapist that her mother had set her up with years ago—Dr. Wellmind—only now she didn’t hate it quite so much. Indeed, Cozy found it a convenient way to get all of the thoughts out of her head, even if Wellmind was only as real as anybody else. The fact that she legally couldn’t talk about any of the things Cozy told her (patient confidentiality, Wellmind had told her) was a nice bonus. In fact, Cozy had even opened up about what had really happened with her mother.

“Goodness, Cozy. I’m so sorry, that’s awful!” Wellmind had exclaimed when Cozy had finished. “But I hope you realize what happened to your mother isn’t your fault.”

“But it is. I told you, remember?” Cozy stated.

“Cozy, all of us do and say things we deeply regret when we’re angry,” Wellmind calmly explained. “You may have wanted to hurt your mother then, but you never meant for things to turn out the way they did, did you?”

“I suppose….”

“Exactly, it’s perfectly understandable that you would feel remorse over what happened, but….”

“Oh, please. Make no mistake, Dr. Wellmind. I don’t regret what happened,” Cozy said with a serene smile. “In fact, I’m glad. It’s helped me understand myself better than I ever have.”

Wellmind had been silent for some time before saying, “Remember what we talked about. You are not broken, Cozy. You just struggle with things that come to others more naturally.” The word “empathy” often came up a lot in their sessions together. “Keep doing the exercises we talked about, and I’ll see you next week.”

Wellmind had ended their session fifteen minutes early, which was fine to Cozy. Then thanks to her father’s drinking, they had been unable to afford further sessions until he met her stepmom. By that point, her father had believed he’d only been drinking to fill the hole in his heart left by his wife and unborn child. He’d forgotten all about the brief moment of clarity he’d had when he found his daughter throwing rocks at birds.

Cozy hadn’t killed any birds for a very long time since then. Once or twice she’d thought about sending her father or stepmom on a similar tumble as she had her mother, but ultimately realized she probably wouldn’t get away with it again. The kind of accident that befell her mother typically didn’t happen to the same family twice. But still, she wanted to try again—to do it intentionally next time—and the birds and other small animals simply weren’t enough.

But the past year had given her hope: that she wasn’t alone. All the strange events of the past year: the Club, Hurricane Everblue, things that normally happened elsewhere were now happening here, making Canterlot feel more visceral, more...real. And then came the Dead Hand Killings, which turned out to be three girls not much older than her. She had no idea how to contact them so she could confirm what she was wondering, but...surely, they saw what she did, didn’t they? Somehow, they managed to make part of their world more than just dreams.

For the first time in a while, Cozy dared to hope that she wasn’t alone in the world. It had been what had driven her to set her sights on Button Mash initially. She let the others believe she only wanted him as a boyfriend, when the truth was she wanted to feel what those three girls must have felt. She wanted to stand over him and watch as he became more real after she forced her will upon him, just as she had done with her mother and the birds. Chrysalis had simultaneously dashed that dream and given her a better, brighter one.

Because one day, one bright shining day...she had seen Chrysalis nearly choke Diamond Tiara to death and realized that maybe she really wasn’t alone, and that there was someone just like her much closer and more attainable than the three Dead Hands. Because she could see Chrysalis clearly as soon as she realized what she had been doing to Diamond. Yes, there was no doubt about it: they were the same.

It had been a lonely life, living in a world where she was the only real person. But then Chrysalis came along, and suddenly Cozy realized she wasn’t alone anymore. Chrysalis was real too: She’d proved it when she tried to kill Diamond the first time. If that was the case, Cozy realized that Chrysalis must have had a lonely life too, believing herself to be the only real person as Cozy once had.

Well, don’t you worry, Chrys, Cozy thought, reaching into her bag and feeling the object inside. The pocket knife brought her comfort with promises of things to come. After tomorrow, neither of us will be lonely ever again!

Chapter 10 - Friends Will Be Friends

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The poisonous thoughts planted in Chrysalis’s mind by the overheard conversation between Star Tracker and his friends followed her into the next day.

“I just feel bad for those poor girls she hangs out with,” said the kid with glasses—Chips, according to Soda.

“You mean Apple Bloom and the others?” Star asked.

“Yeah, man. They’re absolutely terrified of her! They know she’s a killer as much as anyone.”

It wasn’t true. It simply wasn’t. But Chrysalis was all too aware of the truth to the lie that she’d killed Diamond Tiara. Wasn’t there some truth to this too? At least Chrysalis could say she was innocent of the other missing person’s cases.

As it turned out, Diamond was only the latest in a number of similarly aged girls to have gone missing. Chrysalis had found this out watching the news with Celestia this morning. Apparently, enough girls were missing now that the mayor was issuing a six o’clock curfew. The news wasn’t the start to the Saturday that Chrysalis had been hoping for.

Usually Chrysalis hung out with her friends online while they played some video game or another, or even spent the day out with them in person. But when she received the invite from Sweetie Belle to join them ice skating, Chrysalis told her she had other plans today, which was technically true. Sunset Shimmer had messaged her the previous evening asking if she could come over in the afternoon. But there were still plenty of hours left before the afternoon; more than enough time to spend the morning at the skating rink with her friends. It was something she’d always wanted to try after all.

But Chrysalis simply didn’t have the energy to hang out with her friends today. She told herself she was just tired and managed to be half convinced. So, Chrysalis simply lounged around the house with Celestia (Sable was already at Sunset’s on SIREN business) until the afternoon rolled around, at which point Celestia gave her a ride to Sunset’s.

When she arrived at Sunset’s family manor, she rang the doorbell and was greeted by one of the triplets, a girl whose name was Aria, if Chrysalis remembered right. The girl regarded her with a neutral expression that seemed vaguely hostile to Chrysalis. She could understand why: the last time they’d really met face-to-face had been as enemies.

“Hey, Aria,” Chrysalis said, hoping that she had the correct name. “Uh, Sunset asked me to come by, and….”

Aria remained silent, allowing Chrysalis to fumble through her words a little longer. If she was doing it to amuse herself, Chrysalis couldn’t tell from her exceptionally neutral expression.

“Yeah, we’re expecting you. Come in,” Aria finally said, opening the door wider and stepping back into the house.

Chrysalis awkwardly thanked her and followed her in. Once inside, Aria led Chrysalis to the concealed elevator behind the gimbaled bookshelf, which Chrysalis realized meant that Sunset was likely down in the underground bunker. The two of them stepped into the elevator and Aria pressed the button to bring it down. The silence was uncomfortable bordering on oppressive. The feeling reminded her of when she’d been sent to the vice principal’s office after she accidentally cussed him out earlier that week.

When they reached the bunker, Chrysalis saw a squad of about half a dozen incredibly fit young women performing physical training with Troubleshoes Clyde. As Chrysalis understood, these were the first generation of Sunset Shimmer’s personal guard—the new SIRENs.

It then dawned on Chrysalis that every one of these women was actually a pony “borrowed” from the best of Equestria’s own armed forces, which was a sobering thought. Chrysalis wouldn’t be surprised to hear if one or all of them had gone into combat against her changelings at some point during their career. Chrysalis had once prided herself in the number of casualties she’d inflict on her enemies in her attacks. Now, it was just another point of remorse and shame within her as she wondered how many of the transplanted Equestrian soldiers in front of her had lost someone dear to them fighting her swarm.

Doing her level best to ignore the women’s training regimen, the ex-queen followed as Aria led her past them to what appeared to be a modest office near the back of the bunker, where the other two triplets were inspecting new equipment laid out on a table. Aria knocked on the door before opening it and Chrysalis was ushered in.

Inside, she could see Sunset Shimmer seated at a desk apparently just concluding a conversation with Sable. Chrysalis gave him a smile as he passed her on his way out, but Sable only gave her a curt nod in return. That also worried Chrysalis, given how close they were, even though she knew he was just doing his job.

“Hi Chrysalis, please take a seat,” Sunset said pleasantly enough. Chrysalis still couldn’t shake the feeling of being in Vice Principal Neighsay’s office.

“I…didn’t know you had your own home office,” Chrysalis said in an effort to lighten the mood as she sat in one of the chairs across from the desk.

“It’s something I added after taking on more responsibilities as Alicorn of Earth,” Sunset explained. “And on that topic, I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Okay….”

Briefly studying Chrysalis with those striking cyan eyes of hers, Sunset got straight to the point. “Can you tell me what exactly you were doing on the night of November 16?”

That was the night she had met with Diamond Tiara about the blackmail—the night Diamond had subsequently gone missing. All at once Chrysalis knew exactly why she was here.

“I already told you about my meeting with Diamond Tiara at Sugarcube Corner that night,” Chrysalis said.

“You did, but I need a more detailed account of events from your perspective.”

Feeling like—ironically—a bug under a microscope, Chrysalis sighed and recounted the events of that night to the best of her memory. Sunset interjected occasionally to ask about details like the time, but for the most part listened quietly. Chrysalis was reminded of the dream she had earlier that week in which she was confronted by the wrathful goddess that was Sunset Shimmer.

“And you were entirely lucid during all of that time?” Sunset asked when she was finished. “No unexplained gaps in your memory?”

Chrysalis was momentarily confused by the question before she remembered that she’d seen Sunset about her problem with Queen a few days ago. “No. As far as I can tell, I’ve been in total control of my body ever since Queen revealed herself.”

The brief memory of her lapse of said control, under Queen’s goading, when she choked out Zipporwhill flashed to mind, but it was just as quickly pushed away. It would be too easy to blame that incident entirely on Queen, when the truth was Chrysalis had hurt Zipporwhill of her own free will.

“Okay…that should be enough. Thank you, Chrysalis.”

Deciding to just say what was on her mind, Chrysalis asked, “Sunset…you don’t think I have something to do with what happened to Diamond, do you?”

Finally giving her a warm smile, Sunset said, “I’ve heard what people at school have been saying about you, but personally I don’t believe any of it.” There was a slight uncomfortable pause before Sunset continued. “That being said, as the Alicorn of Earth I have certain…responsibilities where you’re concerned. In a way, I’m kind of like your parole officer.”

Chrysalis’s eyes fell. “Right, makes sense.” It seemed almost appropriate that the daughter of Princess Celestia maintained a sort of vigil, that even having “died” in Equestria to escape to a new life here on human Earth, Chrysalis couldn’t fully escape being under the alicorns’ watch.

“If there’s even the slightest possibility that you’ve become a danger to the people of this world, it’s my duty to investigate it fully, regardless of my personal biases,” Sunset explained. “But from the bottom of my heart I think you’re a good person, Chrys. I don’t believe you laid a finger on Diamond Tiara that night. That said…I would be neglecting my duties as the Alicorn of Earth if I didn’t at least look into the possibility.”

“I understand; I don’t take it personally.”

Sunset nodded. “If it makes you feel better, I spoke with Scootaloo’s parents, and they told me you arrived at their place at the time you said. That combined with certain details of Diamond’s case that I, uh…managed to acquire, it would be impossible for you to have been in the vicinity at the time Diamond was abducted by normal standards.”

Chrysalis caught the comment. “By normal standards?”

“If you were a genetically normal girl. Being what you are, the mathematical calculations and such would even be able to discount doppelgangers, teleportation and such. Trust me, I did the math. Remember that I need to keep track of those variables as well.” Sunset leaned back in her chair. “Plus, I had to review some traffic camera footage and other things. Trust me, when I say you’re in the clear, I mean it.”

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. Traffic camera footage? So, Sunset had information about Diamond’s case likely only privy to members of law enforcement. This was certainly an interesting development.

“Sunset, are you going to try to find Diamond and the other missing girls?” Chrysalis asked.

With a resigned sigh, Sunset said, “That was my plan, but Sable just now talked me out of it. Said that as long as nothing magical is involved—which is apparently the case—the missing girls are not my ‘jurisdiction,’ and that the proper authorities should handle it.”

“Can’t you just say, ‘screw jurisdiction, I’m the Alicorn of Earth?’”

Sunset let out a soft chuckle at that and said, “As much as I’d like to, I’d also like to avoid becoming a tyrant. I’ve been down that road and, well…you know better than most how it is.” Brushing aside a strand of red hair, Sunset added, “Aside from that, Sable made it clear that I’d be potentially creating a ton of trouble for certain individuals close to me. The kind of trouble that ends careers.”

Chrysalis wasn’t entirely sure what or who Sunset was talking about, but at that moment was far more focused on the other implications of what Sunset had told her. Namely, that Sable knew about the disappearances. That would certainly explain some of his behavior in recent weeks.

Seeing Chrysalis’s downcast expression, Sunset said, “What I can tell you though is that law enforcement is closing in on the culprits. It’s not a matter of if they’ll be caught, but when.”

“That’s good to know,” Chrysalis said, getting up from her chair and turning to look out the window into the main cavernous chamber of the underground bunker where the Equestrian transplants were still training.

“I’m sorry to have summoned you all this way just to confirm what I already knew,” Sunset said, getting up from behind her desk and standing next to Chrysalis, looking on at her developing royal guard alongside her. “If you want to stick around and hang out, I think Twily and Tavi are playing games upstairs.”

Chrysalis briefly thought of her own friends’ invite to hang out today, and then said, “Sure, I’d love to hang out!”

Another thought then occurred to Chrysalis at that moment. “Hey, I know it’s only been a few days, but did you hear anything back from Princess Twilight about…y’know….” Chrysalis pointed at her own head, knowing that Sunset would understand her meaning.

Frowning, Sunset said, “Sorry, Chrysalis. Unfortunately, Twilight didn’t have much to add to our initial examination, and what she did manage to dig up isn’t exactly comforting.”

Worrying that Sunset wouldn’t elaborate for that exact reason, Chrysalis said, “And…?”

“According to the most recent research Twilight managed to dig up, it would seem that much of what we always thought of as changeling magic is actually biological in nature. Specifically, the way the hive mind works as we understand it.”

Well, that would explain why Sunset couldn’t find any magical entity in my head, Chrysalis thought. It certainly made the prospect of getting rid of Queen through magical means seem quite impossible.

“You’re right, that isn’t very comforting at all,” Chrysalis said. “Please tell me she had something else. Anything else.”

Hesitating for a brief moment, Sunset said, “She did, but…I’m not sure it has anything to do with your problem.”

“Sunset, I am literally grasping at straws here. Anything will help.”

Looking away from Chrysalis and returning her attention to her soldiers out the window, Sunset said, “Twilight also told me that the same day we all returned to the human world, someone broke into the Royal Canterlot Museum and stole an artifact.”

“Okay, you’re right. I don’t see what that has to do with….”

“The artifact in question was your crown.”

Chrysalis slowly turned and looked at Sunset. “You mean the crown I wore as the queen of the changelings?” She asked, and Sunset nodded. “Does Twilight have any idea who stole it?”

Sunset shook her head. “No, but the theory is that it was changelings formerly of your own hive.” Sunset then looked at Chrysalis. “Actually, I’d totally forgotten about it before now. Is there any reason you can think of that the changelings would want to steal it?”

“Hmm…well, it is the only object in existence with a connection to the hive mind,” Chrysalis said.

“Wait, really? I thought only changelings were linked by the hive mind.”

“Technically that’s not wrong. The crown works as a sort of conduit: a means for changelings to amplify their connection to the hive mind. It’s part of how a queen controls her drones,” Chrysalis explained.

“I see. Then is it possible the changelings were worried Equestria could use the crown to gain control of the hive mind?” Sunset asked, stroking her chin.

“No. Like I said, it’s only usable by changelings. The fact that it was in a museum and not a Guild research facility proves that nopony had any idea the crown was anything more than regalia.”

“So, what then? Does the crown have a deep cultural significance to the changelings? Could that be why they stole it?”

“Honestly, that seems to be the most likely case—I vaguely recall being given it by one of my lieutenants way back when I first assumed the throne. I’m sure another queen has risen to fill the vacuum I left behind. Getting my crown would give her legitimacy not only in the eyes of my old hive, but to others too.”

“Okay…that’s interesting. I’ll be sure to let Twilight know,” Sunset said. “Thanks, Chrys.”

Cozy Glow felt content for the first time in…well, she didn’t know how long. Perhaps it was because she’d stopped taking her medication for almost a week now (all of those bitter pills simply went down the drain). Cozy knew, though, that the real reason she felt so good was because of the promise of today.

It was Saturday morning, and after sleeping in a little, she grabbed a quick breakfast and sat at the dining room table to draw. Artistic expression was something that her therapist often encouraged and had even asked Cozy to show her what she drew. Cozy didn’t show her every one of her drawings, of course. She was smart enough to know that certain ones would raise concerns and set things back.

“Hey Cozy, I’m going into the office now,” said Dress Code.

“Okay.”

The woman her father was engaged to liked to give Cozy her space, which was fine by her. She was also a workaholic and went into work on weekends frequently, which Cozy was also fine with. But before she left Cozy alone, she took a peek over her shoulder to see what she was drawing.

“Wow, your drawing’s really gotten better, Cozy,” Dress said, sounding genuinely impressed.

“Thanks.”

Cozy found that she always had a knack for drawing, at least beyond what was considered average for a girl her age. She had a considerable grasp on perspective and anatomy but struggled considerably with faces. The subject of her current drawing, however, had clearly defined facial features and actually looked real.

“Is she someone you know?” Dress asked, for once persisting in her efforts to connect with Cozy rather than run to the office right away.

Cozy found herself not as annoyed as she expected to be. “She’s my new friend,” she answered. “Turns out we have a lot in common!”

“Aw, that’s nice, Cozy. I hope I get to meet her some day.” Dress then did something she didn’t normally do. She pulled Cozy into a one-armed embrace. Not sure what else to do, Cozy just sat there and waited for it to be over.

“I’ll be home this evening,” Dress said after concluding the hug. “Be good, okay?”

With a sweet smile, Cozy said, “Always!” before returning her attention to her drawing of herself holding hands with her new friend.

It was around that time Cozy’s phone vibrated with a soft ding. She had a new message from Silver Spoon.

> Rover’s friends are ready. You got a spot?

Cozy picked up her phone and typed a quick reply.

> Yeah

She then flipped over the paper with the drawing of her and Chrysalis to look at the one underneath. It was a drawing she had made when she’d first started hanging out with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. A simple sketch of the three of them together, but unlike the drawing of Chrysalis their faces didn’t look quite right. Silver’s mouth was off center, and her nose was too low on her face, while Diamond’s eyes weren’t properly aligned and just a bit too far apart. Cozy couldn’t figure out any of this, though. All she knew was that they weren’t right.

As pencil sketches, they were composed only with the white of the paper and gray of the pencil. However, just the other day, Cozy had been coloring another drawing with red pencil crayon and had slipped, accidentally getting some on her sketch of Diamond. Somehow, the striking splotch of red made Diamond’s face look a little less wrong, so Cozy scribbled more red until the color was her face. Looking at Silver’s face on the other side of the sketch, Cozy was hit with a sudden inspiration and grabbed her red pencil crayon, filling in Silver’s face too.

Cozy really liked the symmetry of her drawing now and dared to think it was finally perfect.

In spite of what Sunset had told her minutes prior, Twilight and Octavia were not playing games when Chrysalis found them. Instead, they were just on their way out to do some shopping—Octavia needed new guitar strings and Twilight wanted to tag along to browse the music store called Blue Note’s. Having never been to a music store before, Chrysalis had asked if she could join them, interrupting the beginnings of an argument about whether they should try a different store.

“Of course you can tag along, Chrys,” Twilight said.

Octavia, on the other hand, gave her a curious frown. “Yes, we’d be happy to have you Chrys, but I hope you’re not blowing off any plans with your own friends for us. Sunset says you and Apple Bloom’s group of friends are pretty much inseparable.”

Chrysalis again thought of the invite she’d gotten from her friends to hang out today. “It’s okay, they’re all busy,” she said.

So, with no further prying into the matter, Chrysalis left with them. She felt a little like a third wheel, but at least she wasn’t alone in that regard. Another girl silently joined the group when they got into Octavia’s car: a petite Asian girl who introduced herself as Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which Chrysalis was ninety percent sure wasn’t her real name. The girl treated her with the same cold distance as the triplets, and Chrysalis realized she may have also seen her with the attack force that had raided her underground base in Equestria. Suffice to say, the car ride was somewhat awkward as sitting in the backseat with Whiskey, neither girl really had much to say. Mercifully the ride to the music shop was short.

After Octavia found the guitar strings she was looking for, the group of them started browsing records. Chrysalis didn’t recognize most of the artists—she’d focused more on catching up with popular culture in film rather than music—but there were a few she was familiar with. She saw a few records from Ziggy Stardust she recognized as well as—ironically enough—Queen, but the one vinyl she actually thought about purchasing was a “Best of Enya” greatest hits album.

Chrysalis wasn’t sure why, but something about Enya’s music really resonated with her. Perhaps it was the ethereal sound of the artist’s voice that made it unique to anything she’d heard either in Equestria or here on Earth. Whatever the reason, Chrysalis grabbed the album and met up with Twilight and Octavia at checkout. That was where she noticed two more familiar faces as they entered the shop.

“Oh, Hey Fluttershy. Hi Rarity!” Twilight exclaimed as she went in for the hug with her two friends, followed shortly by Octavia.

Chrysalis settled for a cool nod and a “Hey,” while Whiskey just stuck with the nod.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you two here,” Octavia exclaimed.

“Yes, Fluttershy and I were having a girls’ day out and thought we’d drop in here,” Rarity said.

With a nod, Fluttershy explained, “I was hoping to find something here to get the creative juices flowing.”

“Oh right, you’re still writing that original song for us to play,” Octavia said.

As Fluttershy and Octavia occupied themselves talking music, Rarity directed a curious look to Chrysalis. “I must say, I’m surprised to see you here, Chrysalis darling. I thought you’d be out with my sister and her friends.”

This drew a sympathetic wince from Twilight, who otherwise said nothing. Chrysalis couldn’t think of what to say, and simply went with, “Yeah, it is what it is.”

After a few more minutes of catching up with Fluttershy and Rarity, Chrysalis and the others paid for their stuff and exited the store, wishing the other pair a good day.

As they headed back to Octavia’s car, Twilight’s hand rested on Chrysalis’s shoulder and she asked, “Hey, I’m sorry about what happened. That’s gotta be pretty rough.”

Chrysalis looked at her, confused. “What are you talking about?”

With a sympathetic look, Twilight said, “Well, you said earlier that your friends were all busy, but Rarity just said they were all out together. I don’t know…kinda gives me the impression they ditched you.”

Octavia, who hadn’t been listening to their conversation with Rarity, exclaimed, “Wait, your friends ditched you, Chrysalis? That’s terrible!”

Chuckling, Chrysalis wasted no time setting the record straight. “You guys are sweet for worrying, but it’s not like that. They actually asked me to hang out with them, but I told you they were busy because it was easier to explain.”

Frowning, Octavia asked, “Easier to explain than what?”

Chrysalis didn’t know how to answer the question, but it didn’t stop her from trying. But when her attempted explanation amounted to little more than strained “ums” and “uhs,” Twilight said, “You know, I may not be the social fixer my sister is, but even I can recognize a friendship problem when I see it.”

Putting an arm around Chrysalis, Octavia said, “Exactly, so come on. Out with it. What’s the issue?”

“Really, there’s no issue. I just…needed a day to myself,” Chrysalis insisted.

“Right…which is why you’re out on the town with us. That makes sense.”

Starting to get a little annoyed, Chrysalis said, “Well, maybe I should just go home then.”

“There’s no need to be defensive, Chrys. We’re only trying to help,” Twilight said.

Taking a breath, Chrysalis said, “I appreciate the concern, but it’s fine.”

Then to Chrysalis’s surprise, it was Whiskey who spoke up and said, “Is it that you’re feeling a disconnect from your friends because you’re actually an ancient being who has experienced things that they could never understand?”

Having almost forgotten about Whiskey, Chrysalis opened her mouth to retort and instead found herself saying, “Hit the nail on the head.”

With the tiniest of smiles—something Chrysalis would have thought was impossible from the girl moments ago—Whiskey said, “Let’s just say I have some experience with that feeling.”

Errantly kicking a small piece of rubbish on the sidewalk, Chrysalis said, “It’s not just that I’m a now-immortal being that’s lived mostly in another world or even that I’m out of my timeframe here on my own world. It’s that…I’m not a good person.” Then looking at Octavia, Chrysalis said, “For instance, I tried to kill you.”

“She what?” Whiskey growled dangerously, her right hand seemingly reaching for something on her back, and Chrysalis began to worry.

“It was a…misunderstanding,” Twilight quickly added. “It got resolved.”

“Oh, okay.”

Chrysalis glanced at Whiskey and noted a soft glow of magic recede from the girl’s hand. She wasn’t aware of what was about to happen, but she knew it wasn’t going to likely be good had Twilight not spoken up.

“Exactly, and I’ve already forgiven you for it, Chrys,” Octavia insisted. “You don’t have to keep beating yourself up over it.”

“And while I very much appreciate that, Tavi, you have to remember I’ve tried to kill others, too.” Chrysalis stopped walking. “And most of the time I succeeded.”

“I think I understand,” Twilight said. “You still see yourself as a murderer.”

Chrysalis nodded. “And I think my friends know it. Not consciously, of course. But on some level….”

“Alright, even if that’s true—which I doubt—that doesn’t matter,” Whiskey said. “I’m a murderer too, you know.”

Considering what Chrysalis knew about the SIREN raid on her headquarters, she didn’t doubt Whiskey had a sizable body count. She also remembered what Sable had told her the other morning about killing being wrong no matter the reason. Chrysalis agreed with him to an extent, but some forms of violence were definitely worse than others.

“You’re part of the Equestrian military; so technically you did yours in the line of duty and as a result did it legally,” the former queen noted. “And even if that wasn’t the case, it isn’t the same as the kind of stuff I’ve done.”

“Before I was a SIREN, I was a bodyguard for a reprehensible princeling in a society already behind the rest of the world ethically and morally,” Whiskey explained. “Are you aware of how the quality and sharpness of swords are tested in Inari?”

Chrysalis shook her head. “Inari was never a target of particular interest to me, so I never did much research on it.”

“It’s called tameshigiri. The testing of blades is combined with Inari’s capital punishment system and was occasionally one of my duties as Fujitsu’s retainer,” Whiskey said, her soft but firm voice taking on a somber tone. “Did you know the best swords can cleanly decapitate five people before it takes more than one swing?”

Blinking owlishly at the outwardly harmless looking Asian girl, Chrysalis coughed and said, “You learn something new every day, I guess.”

“The point that I’m making is, that person isn’t who I am anymore.”

“Exactly,” said Octavia, putting an arm around Whiskey. “Even with that quite frankly disturbing knowledge, Whiskey is one of my closest friends. That is who she is to me: she’s more than just her past.”

“And it’s the same with the triplets,” Twilight added. “I don’t know how many innocent lives they’ve taken when they were with the original SIREN, but from how they describe it they treated the Geneva Conventions more like a to-do list.” She and the others couldn’t help but chuckle a little at the dark absurdity of the statement. “But just like Octavia with Whiskey, I love my cousins for who they are now. Sure, their past will always be a part of them but that doesn’t mean it has to define them.”

“Wow Twily, I didn’t know you could be so wise,” Octavia said.

Grinning, Twilight said, “I may be an INT-based class, but my WIS isn’t just a dump stat!”

Octavia snorted. “And there’s the nerd I’m more familiar with!”

Chrysalis was silent as she tried to process this. Twilight and Octavia were both very aware of the terrible things their friends and loved ones had done in their previous lives and still loved them. Maybe the same would one day be true of her own friends. It was a heartening thought.

Just then her phone vibrated, and she checked it expecting a message from one of her friends. It would have been poignant timing, but instead Chrysalis was surprised to see that Cozy Glow was the sender.

> Hey can we meet up? We need to talk

Remembering their talk from the other day, Chrysalis replied immediately.

> Yeah is something wrong?

The reply came quickly.

> Silver Spoon is gonna do something bad and I want out

> I need your help

Chrysalis replied that she’d be right there and asked for a location to meet up. She then returned her attention to the girls around her.

“Thanks for the talk guys, but I need to go. Something came up that I need to take care of.”

Looking mildly concerned, but not pushing the issue, Octavia said, “Okay. Can I drop you off somewhere?”

Chrysalis’s phone chirped again, and she checked it to see that Cozy had sent her a location.

“I’d appreciate it.”

Despite it only being ten minutes to five, the sun was already starting to go down by the time Octavia dropped Chrysalis off at her destination. She did so taking an uneasy look at the park as they idled in the parking lot.

“Are you sure you don’t want Whiskey to accompany you, Chrys?” Octavia asked. “Sure, it’s not as bad as Sunnytown, but Darkside is a pretty rough neighborhood in its own right.”

“Plus, with everything going on…” Twilight added, leaving the rest of the statement unsaid.

“I appreciate the offer, but I need to do this alone,” Chrysalis said, giving her and the others a reassuring smile, a flash of green in her mouth revealing her very real fangs. “Besides, you guys know I can more than handle myself.”

“Fair enough, but be careful anyway, okay?”

“Yeah. I for one find it really odd that your friend would want to meet in a place like this,” Twilight said.

If she was being honest, Chrysalis found it odd too. For all she knew, Cozy was just playing games with her. But if there was even the smallest chance that she genuinely needed help, Chrysalis decided it was worth the risk.

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,” she said, opening the car door and stepping out.

“If you say so,” Octavia relented. “Just text us when you’re home safe, okay?”

Promising that she would, Chrysalis closed the car door and watched them drive off, then turned and started walking into the park. Darkside Mile Square Park consisted mostly of soccer and baseball fields divided by pathways dotted with overflowing trashcans, benches and the occasional porta-potty. One of the fields was full of all sorts of equipment and tents that had been packed away—remnants of some sort of sports expo that had been set up the previous week, apparently. There wasn’t anybody else around. Evidently, it was too cold to be out in the park at this hour.

What was most concerning about Darkside Park was the presence of the Everfree on its eastern border. Chrysalis remembered reading a news story on Twitter that a person had been attacked by a wild animal near the Everfree about two weeks ago. Keeping her head on a swivel, she walked from one end of the park to the other, only stopping to text Cozy upon reaching a sign that read EVERFREE FOREST LIMITS. CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

> I’m here where are you?

Right away Chrysalis saw the moving ellipsis as Cozy typed her reply, which came shortly after.

> Just past the sports building

Chrysalis could see the sports building a good distance north of where she was standing. But it was right on the edge of the Everfree. Cozy wasn’t inside it, was she? Quickly sending another text (not to Cozy Glow), Chrysalis made her way across the field to the sports complex, passing another ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK sign as she stepped onto the weathered hiking trail into the forest.

It wasn’t long before she came across Cozy Glow, standing in a rocky clearing by a still, silent river. Against the drab colors of the bare trees, the short girl stood out in her bright pink winter coat and baby blue scarf. The puffy coat made her look comically round, but her face was all business.

“There you are. You sure picked an out of the way spot to meet, Cozy,” Chrysalis asked.

With an understanding smile, Cozy said, “I know. I’m sorry if you had trouble finding me, Chryssie. I just needed a place to talk so we wouldn’t be disturbed by any Nosy Nellies.”

So, Cozy didn’t want to risk anyone listening to their conversation. That certainly made things look serious.

“So, what’s this about, Cozy?” Chrysalis asked. “You said that Silver Spoon is up to something?”

Nodding with a deadly serious expression, Cozy said, “Yeah. She thinks she can prove that you’re why Di’s missing.”

Chrysalis couldn’t help but roll her eyes. She wished she could say she was shocked. “Does she now?”

“Yeah. She came up with a plan for it and everything.” Cozy then pulled out her phone and showed it to Chrysalis, who noticed she had some kind of audio recording app open and running. “When I told her that you and I had been talking, she asked me to get a confession from you. But you know what I say to that?”

Cozy then held the phone inches from her face and shouted, “Fuck you, Silver Spoon!” Then with that, she shut the phone off and tossed it into the river. “My dad’ll buy me another one.”

Anybody else might not have believed that such rage coming from such a comically short, adorable child could be genuine, but Chrysalis could taste it.

“You really hate her, don’t you?” she mused.

“I hate both of them! They think they’re soooooo much better than me. Better than everyone. It’s like they don’t even know they’re not real!”

Chrysalis wasn’t entirely sure what Cozy meant by that. Was that her way of calling Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon superficial?

Reigning in her emotions, Cozy continued calmly, “That’s why I want to help you, Chryssie. And I want you to help me. So, in the interest of helping you, I’ve gotta ask: Is there anything that could trace back to you?”

Now truly lost, Chrysalis asked, “What do you mean?”

“Y’know, any evidence. Like that video Di tried to blackmail you with.”

Chrysalis had some idea of what Cozy was asking, but a part of her couldn’t believe it. “Evidence about what?”

“It’s okay. It’s just us here, now. You can even frisk me if you want. No other recording devices.” Cozy then stepped in close to Chrysalis and said at almost a whisper. “You can be honest with me. You don’t have to pretend you didn’t kill her.”

Taking a step back, Chrysalis stammered, “I…I’m not pretending, I really didn’t do anything to her!”

Cozy noticeably slumped, giving her truly sad puppy dog eyes. “Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s true!”

Sighing, Cozy said, “Fine. I guess you still don’t trust me yet. I understand. But we’ll be friends one way or another. We have too much in common not to be, right?”

Beginning to lose her patience with the truly odd girl in front of her, Chrysalis was starting to believe that coming out here was a waste of her time. “Just what the hell do you and I have in common?”

Cozy started to pace, idly kicking a small rock at her feet as she said, “For so, so long I thought I was alone. The only real person in a dream world.” She looked right at Chrysalis. Right through her. “But you’re real too, aren’t you? You see things as I see them.”

Cozy stepped forward, her face now inches from Chrysalis. “Did you look at her face when you did it? Her eyes? Didn’t they seem more real in that moment?”

Chrysalis understood all at once what exactly Cozy was saying, and she felt a chill run up her spine. All at once, Chrysalis saw who Cozy Glow really was behind the cutesy mask she always wore. It was like looking into a dark mirror. It then occurred to Chrysalis that she hadn’t been sensing any emotion from Cozy after the little rage episode she had just witnessed. Having worked with a variety of crazy and disturbed individuals over her life such as that creep Barkeep, Chrysalis always had her empathic powers to subtly manipulate ponies into doing whatever she wanted. But with Cozy, it was like staring into an emotional void, which was setting off all kinds of alarms in her psyche. This wasn’t the first time Chrysalis had noticed this emotional black hole in Cozy, but all of a sudden its true significance seemed clear.

“Cozy, you…you’ve killed before, haven’t you?” Guess it takes one to know one.

Smiling whimsically, Cozy said, “Yeah. Technically by accident, but…everything seemed so clear then. I’ve been wanting to try again for years, but never got the chance…until you came along.”

Deciding she’d heard enough, Chrysalis turned around and made for the exit, but Cozy grabbed her by the arm with the desperation of a character in a romance movie trying to keep the man she loves from walking out of her life.

“Let go. You need help, Cozy!” Chrysalis exclaimed.

“Yeah, that’s why I called you here, silly! To help me deal with Silver.”

Finally understanding what Cozy really wanted to accomplish, Chrysalis wrenched her arm free of the smaller girl’s grip. She turned back towards the trail to the forest exit and spotted a familiar figure emerge. Well, speak of the devil.

Dressed in a gray coat lined with faux-fur, Silver Spoon pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and called out, “Time’s up, Cozy! Did you get what we wanted?” Then as an afterthought, Silver tilted her head at Chrysalis. “Hey, murderer.”

Chrysalis returned the nod. “’Sup, delusional.”

Behind her, Chrysalis could hear Cozy grumble, “Thought we had a bit more time to plan, but whatever.” Cozy then stood beside Chrysalis. “This is it, Chryssie! Moment of truth.” Cozy looked up at Chrysalis, her eyes as eager as her grin. “My heart is beating so fast, is yours?”

Chrysalis sharply whispered, “We are not killing Silver Spoon!”

“The hell are you whispering about? Got something to say?” Silver Spoon sneered. “Well, you can tell it to my friends. Rover!” Silver Spoon whistled like she was calling a dog, and sure enough her dog appeared, armed with a baseball bat.

“You’re gonna pay for what you did to my girlfriend, you bitch!” Rover shouted.

He wasn’t alone. The two guys who were with him on Halloween appeared just behind him, along with two more boys and a girl. All of them were wearing similar punk attire and dog collars. Looks like Rover brought along his whole gang this time, Chrysalis thought.

Beside her, Cozy frowned. “Hmm…there’s a lot more of them than I thought there’d be. This could be a problem.”

Chrysalis said nothing and readied herself as Rover and his gang spread out, encircling her and Cozy Glow.

“Don’t take this personally, Cozy, but I didn’t trust you to get Chrysalis to admit what she did,” Silver said. “I appreciate you trying, but we’ll take it from here.”

So, it seemed that Silver was unaware of what Cozy had been planning. Chrysalis decided to use that to her advantage. “You know she’s planning to kill you, right?”

“Sounds like somebody’s projecting,” Silver retorted.

“I’m telling the truth, Cozy’s insane! And I don’t know how many times I need to say it, but I didn’t do anything to Diamond Tiara!”

“So, you’re disloyal and a liar, huh?” Rover said, slapping his bat into his open palm.

“And what about the other girls that are missing?” Chrysalis asked. “You think that’s my doing too?”

Silver shrugged. “Maybe. From what I know, most of them were last seen around you. Seems a little strange to me.”

That is a little strange, Chrysalis thought. But right at that moment, it wasn’t her concern.

“I don’t give a shit about any of them,” Rover said. “I just want my girlfriend back!”

With no other words, Rover charged forward. Chrysalis was vaguely aware that Silver was shaking her head with her head in her hand but was focused entirely on Rover as he wound back his bat to swing. It was aimed at her head, but Rover had gotten no better about telegraphing his attacks than the last time they fought. Chrysalis ducked the swing easily and simultaneously aimed low with her fist, using his own momentum as much as hers to hit him hard in the stomach. Rover doubled forward with an “ulp” and Chrysalis immediately followed up by grabbing him and flipping him over her outstretched leg in something vaguely reminiscent of a Judo move, putting him on the ground. Then all hell broke loose as the other five members of Rover’s gang jumped in, while Cozy Glow simply stepped back, assessing the situation. Silver, meanwhile, merely looked on with mild distaste.

One on one, Chrysalis could confidently beat Rover in a fight. Against Rover and a couple of his friends, she would have a much harder time but would probably come out on top if she played it smart. Against a whole squad of five or six…Chrysalis didn’t like her odds. At least, not without going all out. No, I can’t afford to go all out.

The first of Rover’s crew was on her; a big guy who’d been with Rover the night of Halloween. Transforming into a giant werewolf to scare him off wasn’t an option here, but as luck would have it, he didn’t appear to have been in many fights before. If he had, he would have known to keep his chin low. Chrysalis exploited the mistake and delivered a quick, precise jab to his exposed throat, sending him staggering back and onto his knees as he suddenly found breathing very difficult.

Right behind him was another guy wearing shoulder pads and a biker helmet. He kept his chin low and took a swing at Chrysalis with a short chain, which Chrysalis avoided by leaping back. She felt someone try to grab her from behind and didn’t give them the chance, swiftly elbowing them in the face. Chrysalis felt something snap—probably a nose—and the feminine cry of pain that followed made Chrysalis realize it had been the one girl of Rover’s crew.

A second pair of hands grabbed her then much more effectively, putting her in a chokehold. Chrysalis felt the wind knocked out of her as the shorter guy who’d been with Rover on Halloween laid into her with a nasty hit to the gut with a crowbar, but she recovered quickly enough to knock him back with a backhand before he could get in another.

Before she had a moment to even think about getting out of the chokehold that was slowly but persistently cutting off her airway, Biker Helmet lunged forward with his chain again. Chrysalis quickly kicked off of him before he could swing, sending him stumbling backwards and sending herself to the ground, the guy choke holding her now underneath her.

Chrysalis managed to elbow the guy under her once before a large boot hit her hard in the side of her head. Her vision filled with stars, and her whole head exploded with pain, but she suffered worse and kept her focus, elbowing the guy under her a second time, causing his grip to loosen enough for her to roll free. Just in time, too, because Biker Helmet was just swinging down with his chain, barely missing Chrysalis and judging by the sudden cry of “OW, SHIT!” he’d hit the guy who’d been under her instead.

“Sorry,” said Biker Helmet, and Chrysalis took advantage of his momentary distraction for a quick hard kick to the head, thoroughly knocking him on his ass.

Chrysalis breathed heavily. She was getting tired, and her head and stomach hurt where she’d taken hits, but she wasn’t out yet.

With an angry cry, the girl whose nose Chrysalis had bloodied lunged at her with a wide swing. Noticing the large boot that had kicked her head was on the girl’s feet, Chrysalis caught her fist in her hand and then raised the girl’s own arm, using it to block an overhead swing from the shorter guy’s crowbar. This time letting out a cry of anguish, the girl backed off, clutching her arm, and again Chrysalis used the momentary shock of hitting his own comrade to knock down the little crowbar wielder.

Chrysalis then heard Rover’s own battle cry and turned around just in time to see his bat swinging for her. With no time to dodge this time, Chrysalis merely reached up and caught the bat in her hands and gripped it tight. Rover’s eyes went wide as he struggled to wrench his bat free, and Chrysalis stomped down hard on his shin, following up by swinging an arm into his face. Rover let go of the bat and staggered back, and Chrysalis made a show of breaking it in half across her knee and throwing the pieces into the river.

Rover and the other four looked at her with uncertainty. Chrysalis was tired and hurting, but so were all of them, and Chrysalis was starting to think she actually had a chance of getting out of this in one piece. However, it was at that moment that she and the five of them were staring each other down, wondering whether it was worth it to continue, when Chrysalis had a thought.

Wait, weren't there six of them?

She hadn’t even finished that thought before what she could only assume was a large, meaty fist collided with her head at mach speed. Chrysalis didn’t even remember falling to the ground: all of a sudden that was just where she was, with the big guy whose throat she’d punched earlier now on top of her, laying into her with more punches. All Chrysalis could think to do was raise her hands and cover her face, which at this point she was pretty sure was bleeding.

All of a sudden, Chrysalis heard a shocked gasp and the punching stopped. She heard Silver’s voice cry out, “Cozy, what the fuck are you doing?! Are you completely out of your mind?!”

Tentatively lowering her hands, Chrysalis looked at the big guy’s face, which was frozen in shock and pain. Cozy was standing just behind him, smiling serenely with one hand on his shoulder and the other on his side. She then pulled away the hand from his side and Chrysalis saw that it was holding a bloody blade. The knife had a Hello Kitty keychain dangling from it, which might have been funny under different circumstances.

The punk girl was the first to react, running up to Cozy and trying to pull her away from the big guy (Chrysalis noticed she favored the arm that hadn’t been hit with a crowbar). Cozy struggled and slashed with her Hello Kitty knife, successfully drawing blood from the girl’s hand. Rover himself stepped in and punched Cozy hard in the face, pinning her to the ground as he wrestled the knife away from her.

“You disloyal little bitch!” Rover exclaimed, kicking her for good measure before ordering his shorter friend to hold her.

Chrysalis, for her part, had forgotten all about the fight and was trying to apply pressure to the stab wound on the big guy, privately lamenting that she’d never bothered learning any healing spells. At least, before the rough hands of Biker Helmet grabbed her and pulled her off of him. The big guy just stared at her with wide eyes, terrified eyes silently pleading her for help.

“Argh, let go! He needs medical attention!” Chrysalis cried as a second pair of arms—the guy who had her in a chokehold earlier, probably—also grabbed her.

Twisting Cozy’s arm behind her back hard enough to elicit a whimper, Rover shoved her in the punk girl’s direction. With Cozy safely restrained, Rover walked up to Chrysalis, on her knees and held in place by two of his other goons.

Waving Cozy’s Hello Kitty knife in her face, Rover said, “Now…why don’t you tell the truth about what you did to Di that night.”

“For God’s sake, Rover, your friend is going to bleed out if he isn’t taken to a hospital!” Chrysalis desperately exclaimed.

“Oh, you’re not getting out of this that easily, bitch!”

“Rover!” Silver Spoon’s voice drew the boy’s attention away from Chrysalis. She was standing over the big guy on the ground, staring at the blood staining his clothes with clear concern. “I think she’s right.”

Looking from his bleeding friend to Chrysalis to his friend again, Rover sighed and said, “Okay. Spot, take him to your car.”

Nodding, the shorter guy lifted the big one together with Rover, their friend letting out a cry like a wounded dog as they did. The shorter guy then led his injured friend back towards the park, carrying most of his weight over his shoulder. The wound wasn’t fatal—Chrysalis had seen enough over the centuries to know what one looked like—but she figured it was better to be safe rather than sorry. That and it would mean that Silver and Rover were down two of their goons.

Still, even with that rebalancing of the scales, Chrysalis was still dazed, bloodied and on her knees, both of her arms held back by two boys much bigger than her. Cozy’s arm was still twisted behind her back by the girl in Rover’s gang, yet in spite of that she still gave Chrysalis a friendly smile when they locked eyes, silently mouthing the words, “You’re welcome.”

As Rover’s two friends limped out of the clearing, Rover and Silver started arguing in hushed voices, but not so hushed that Chrysalis couldn’t make out a few words.

“…went too far!” Silver hissed.

“…want justice for Di or not?” Rover growled.

Only one figure was left standing in the middle of the rocky clearing. The chitinous, hole-riddled figure of Queen sneered down at Chrysalis, invisible to everyone else.

“Well, isn’t this a predicament we’re in?” she said. “The mighty Queen Chrysalis brought low by a rabble of adolescent thugs. A true fall from grace if I’ve ever seen one!”

Chrysalis just sighed and tried to ignore her. This was the last thing she needed right now.

“Oh, on the contrary, Chrys. You need me now more than ever. The only way I see out of this is if you start actually trying.” Queen looked back over her shoulder as Rover, who was walking away from Silver and back towards Chrysalis. “You would have beaten them easily if you weren’t holding back!”

Queen was right, of course. Chrysalis had been holding back. She had brought the full might of her power on much greater foes than these. But that was exactly the problem. Those foes rarely survived her full might. But before she could think about it any further, Rover walked past Queen—passing obliviously through her—and suddenly his angry face filled her vision.

“Now…just tell me what the fuck you did to Di!”

“I already told you what I did to her: nothing!” Chrysalis spat. “If you really think somebody here is responsible for her disappearance, maybe try asking the girl who just stabbed one of your friends!”

Rover’s brow furrowed, and Chrysalis could see the gears turning in his mind (or rather, the one gear he had).

“Whatever happened to Di, Cozy couldn’t have had anything to do with it,” Silver said. “We were on a call together that whole night.” Then with a frown, she added with a glance Cozy’s way, “Though, you can be sure we’ll be having a little chat about what just happened.”

With a smile, Cozy shrugged in the punk girl’s grip and said, “Looking forward to it!”

“Yeah, we’ll deal with that crazy bitch later. First, I want an answer from you,” Rover demanded. Chrysalis chose not to dignify him with an answer, so Rover grabbed her hair and painfully yanked her head back. “What did you do to her?”

Chrysalis didn’t back down, meeting his gaze head on. “I gave you my answer already.”

Rover punched Chrysalis in the stomach and for a moment she couldn’t catch her breath and started coughing. “What did you do?!”

When she could breathe again, Chrysalis leveled her gaze at him once more, her eyes so firm that Rover actually took a step back.

“I know you think you’re helping her by doing this, but you’re not!” Chrysalis said.

Rover struck her again, across the face this time. But there wasn’t as much power behind the strike as there had been before.

“I’m scared for her too, okay?” Chrysalis continued as if she didn’t taste the blood from her busted lip. “Honestly, I hope that she’s okay, wherever she is.”

Chrysalis glanced past Rover and looked right at Silver Spoon. It was hard to tell through the pain throbbing through her body, but something about her expression looked…softer somehow.

“If you really want to do right by Diamond Tiara, then stop hurting people in her name and actually be there for the people who care about her!”

Rover’s fist, which had been raised to deliver another punch, hung above his head for a moment before dropping to his side. Rover stood there for a while with his arms at his sides, the nearly still water of the nearby river the only sound.

Then Rover reached into his back pocket. “So, you’re not gonna admit it, huh?”

Shaking her head with a shrug, Chrysalis said, “Believe whatever you want. I’m done trying to reason with you.”

There was an object in Rover’s hand now, and Chrysalis knew what it was by the Hello Kitty keychain dangling between his fingers.

“Fine by me,” he said, extending the blade.

One of the guys holding Chrysalis by the arms glanced at the knife and asked, “Rover, what are you doing?”

“Shut up. Hold her still.” Rover held the knife up.

“Rover, that’s enough,” Silver said.

“I said shut up!”

But Silver persisted. “Stop it! We’re supposed to be better than her!”

Rover just ignored her, his focus entirely on Chrysalis as the hand holding Cozy’s knife found itself at the center of a tug-of-war. His anger and pain pushed the knife towards Chrysalis while the voices of Silver and his other friends held it back.

“It’s now or never, Chrys,” Queen said, looking at her over Rover’s shoulder. “Him or you. Your newfound honor, or your life. Our life, actually. Don’t forget I’m in here too.”

Chrysalis just sat still and waited, putting her faith in the simple fact that Rover wouldn’t do it. She turned out to be right, but not for the reason she expected. All of a sudden, something hit Rover in the face, knocking him off balance. A rock landed at his feet, stained with a bit of blood from Rover’s likely now broken nose.

“The hell…?” Rover muttered, turning around to look where the thrown rock had come from.

Chrysalis and the others followed his gaze and were surprised to see a trio of girls all standing by the clearing’s edge. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were both looking at Sweetie Belle with awe as the girl picked up another rock off the ground and held it above her head.

“Wow. Good shot,” Scootaloo whispered.

“Leave our friend alone!” Sweetie shouted, her slight voice crack in no way diminishing the intensity of her words. Following her cue, Scootaloo picked up a rock of her own while Apple Bloom assumed what appeared to be a martial arts stance.

“You okay, Chrys?” Apple Bloom asked.

Weakly nodding, Chrysalis replied, “Yeah. I take it this means you got my text?”

“Yup! Would’ve been here sooner if we hadn’t gotten lost trying to find the sports center!” Scootaloo exclaimed.

“No, your timing is perfect.”

“Ugh, figures you three would side with the murderer,” Silver groaned.

“Chrysalis isn’t a murderer, Silver,” Apple Bloom said. “If you can’t see that, then maybe you need better glasses!”

“Ha! Nice,” Scootaloo laughed.

“Fuck off, kiddies, unless you want some of what your friend got!” Rover shouted.

In spite of her aching face, Chrysalis smiled. “Trust me, Rover, even I can’t call them off now.”

Rover turned to look at her, and with some effort, Chrysalis managed to stand on her feet in spite of the two thugs still trying to hold her down.

“This can go one of two ways, Rover,” she said. “Either you let go of this whole misguided crusade for justice and walk away, or—”

“SUCK ROCK, PUSSYBOYS!” Scootaloo yelled, and before Chrysalis could do or say anything, Scootaloo cast the first stone (well, technically the second). It flew well wide of the mark, clacking to the ground a good few feet away from where Rover was standing. Everyone watched in complete silence as the small rock rolled along before coming to a stop. There was a beat. Then all hell broke loose once again.

Rover charged at Scootaloo, causing Sweetie Belle to loose her own rock. The projectile found its mark and Rover stumbled before tripping and falling to the ground. Chrysalis took advantage of the confusion to wrench her arm free from the boy holding it, bringing it around to sucker-punch the boy holding her other arm. Another thrown rock beat her to it, and the one-two punch of Scootaloo’s rock and Chrysalis’s fist put Biker Helmet down for the count.

Chrysalis wasn’t the only one who saw an opportunity in the confusion. The sound of a sudden scream drew Chrysalis’s attention to the punk girl who had been holding Cozy Glow. Cozy had sunk her teeth into the girl’s arm, growling and thrashing around like a small, vicious dog.

Chrysalis didn’t have time to watch how their fight was progressing, because one of the guys who had been holding her made a grab for her again. Chrysalis reversed the grab and used a tripping maneuver to send the guy to the ground. Biker Helmet was getting back up, but before Chrysalis could move on to him, a perfectly executed martial-arts kick from Apple Bloom sent him back to the ground.

“Whoa…where’d you learn that?” Chrysalis asked.

“My sanbunnim,” Apple Bloom answered. Seeing the blank look, she clarified, “Tae kwon do instructor.”

Groaning, the two thugs rose to their feet, ready for round two. Exchanging a grin, Chrysalis and Apple Bloom stood to meet them. While the four of them were engaged in an all-out brawl, Cozy Glow wrestled on the ground with the punk girl, who grunted as she desperately struggled to get the feral child off of her. Scootaloo was nimbly running circles around Rover as she hit him with more rocks, while Sweetie Belle and Silver Spoon threw rocks at each other.

Finally, the punk girl managed to push the rabid Cozy Glow off of her, only for a stray rock thrown by Silver sailed over Sweetie’s head and nailed the girl’s.

“Agh! Man, fuck this!” she said, kicking some dirt in Cozy’s face before turning tail and running out of the clearing.

Seeing this, the guy taking a beating from Chrysalis decided he’d had enough and followed her. The tide was turning in their favor, and Chrysalis allowed herself to take a breath.

“OW! Get off me, fuckface!”

Hearing Scootaloo’s cry of distress, Chrysalis turned and saw that Rover had managed to catch her, grabbing her by the arm and roughly throwing her to the ground. Seeing that Apple Bloom seemed to have things handled with Biker Helmet, Chrysalis ran towards Rover in a full sprint, tackling him to the ground before laying into him with punch after punch. She was still holding back, but she was also done playing around.

Eventually, Rover stopped fighting back, and Chrysalis hit him with one more punch for good measure. With him down for the count, Chrysalis looked around the battlefield to see who was left. Biker Helmet was already long gone, and Silver Spoon was on her knees covering her nose with her hands. Her glasses were on the ground next to her, broken in two at the bridge from a direct hit from a rock. Sweetie Belle stood over her.

“Are you done telling everyone that my friend is a murderer based on absolutely nothing?” she intoned.

Silver looked up at her, trying to give her a hateful glare even as her eyes brimmed with tears. “How do you have the gall to say that to me when it’s my best friend who’s missing?”

“That’s no excuse for what you and your buddy here tried to do to me,” Chrysalis said, walking over to stand beside Sweetie.

“Exactly,” said Apple Bloom. “Stop looking for someone to blame. It’s not gonna bring Diamond back, and it sure as hell won’t make you feel better.”

Silver stammered for a second before apparently deciding it wasn’t worth it and stormed off with an angry huff, leaving her broken glasses on the ground. Chrysalis and her three friends stood there in the clearing; its silence only interrupted by the occasional groan from Rover as he lay uselessly on the ground.

Taking a breath, Chrysalis grinned through the pain. Having her friends around her made it seem not so bad. “So, I guess a thank you is in order,” she said.

“We’re your friends, Chrys,” Apple Bloom said. “You know we’ve got your back no matter what!”

Grinning and putting an arm on Chrysalis’s shoulder, Sweetie said, “Plus, I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to pay you back for helping me and Button at the mall. We’re even now.”

Chuckling, Chrysalis said, “I didn’t realize we were keeping score.”

The four of them smiled, and Chrysalis knew she’d treasure this moment for a long time when she realized that she was happy to be with her friends, without any other worries plaguing her mind.

“Whew!” exclaimed the high-pitched voice of the one person Chrysalis had forgotten. “Well, that got out of hand a bit, but we did it!”

Chrysalis and the others turned to see that Cozy Glow had pulled herself to her feet, still rubbing the remnants of dirt out of her eye. “You all were great, by the way. Thanks for the assist!”

“Uh…you’re welcome?” Scootaloo asked.

“Yup, things didn’t go quite according to plan, but it still worked out the way I wanted,” Cozy said, bending down to pick up the little switchblade with the cutesy keychain lying on the ground next to Rover. Then with the sweetest and most genuine smile Chrysalis had ever seen on her, Cozy said, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me today, but I’ve got it from here!”

Then with no other warning, Cozy Glow turned and took off running in the same direction as Silver Spoon, stepping on the girl’s broken glasses with an audible crunch.

“The heck was that about?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Something I need to deal with,” Chrysalis said, starting after Cozy. Behind her, she could hear the others start to follow her and with a sigh, Chrysalis turned around. “I really mean it when I say don’t get involved this time. It’s literally life or death!”

“All the more reason for us to come with you!” Scootaloo exclaimed. The determined looks on the others’ faces indicated they felt the same way.

Chrysalis was touched that they were this committed to supporting her, but she couldn’t have them around when she confronted Cozy Glow, both for their own safety, and…because Chrysalis knew there was only one way to stop Cozy. Something that she had tried so hard to avoid doing. Something she didn’t want her friends to be around for.

“Do you girls trust me?” Chrysalis asked.

“Of course!” Sweetie answered without hesitation.

“Then get to the parking lot by the park entrance. I’ll meet up with you there!”

Without giving them a chance to respond, Chrysalis again took off after Cozy Glow. She desperately hoped she wasn’t already too late.

Already winded, Silver Spoon emerged from the Everfree and started running through the dark, empty park. Without her glasses, it was hard to see exactly where she was going, but Silver was pretty sure she knew the way out of the park.

What a shitty time that turned out to be, she thought. If she was being honest, though, Silver had a bad feeling about how things were going to turn out since the day before. Rover had gotten way more aggressive and quicker to rage since Diamond went missing. Silver thought that she could keep him under control when the time came to confront that evil bitch, Chrysalis, but once everything escalated to violence it had been like he’d totally forgotten she was there.

It was a shitty feeling, being so useless. What was more, Silver kept waiting for the sense of satisfaction to kick in when Rover started beating Chrysalis. Waited for that sense of pride in justice being served. But somehow, that feeling never came.

And then there was Cozy Glow. Just what the hell had gotten into her? In stark contrast to Rover, there had been almost no change at all to Cozy’s personality since Diamond went missing. Silver wanted to believe that she was just staying strong for her sake but seeing how blissfully cheerful the girl was even as they plotted their revenge on Chrysalis made Silver wonder whether she cared at all.

Then Cozy had stabbed Fido (Silver didn’t even know she had a knife), and suddenly Cozy’s personality had changed. It was like she’d turned into a wild animal, driven only by an instinct to….

Perhaps she really did care about Diamond after all and had barely been holding herself together all of this time until tensions reached their peak in the Everfree. Yes, that had to be it.

“Hey Silvy, wait up!” Cozy’s voice called out. She sounded just as cheerful and cutesy as always. Did this mean she was through whatever breakdown she’d had in the forest?

Turning around, Silver saw a familiar pink blur jogging to catch up with her, and once more cursed her near-sighted vision. Although Silver wasn’t aware of it, this foggy blur wasn’t too different from the way Cozy saw the people around her.

“Cozy, do you want to explain what the hell happened back there?” Silver asked.

“What do you mean? Everything went according to plan!” Cozy exclaimed, slowing her jog down to a walk.

“What? How was stabbing Fido according to plan?”

It was hard to tell without her glasses, but Silver was pretty sure Cozy frowned. “Okay, so maybe I had to improvise a bit there, but the end result was still what I wanted! My new bestie got rid of all those idiots you’re always with. It’s just you and me now!”

Cozy sounded just as cheerful and friendly as she always did, but for some reason her words sent a chill down Silver’s spine.

“What are you talking about, Cozy?”

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, Silvy,” Cozy said, continuing towards Silver. “Waiting to make you real!”

Silver took a step back and swallowed. “Cozy, you’re scaring me.”

Cozy tilted her head as she got closer. “Why? Don’t you want to be real, Silvy?”

Every instinct in Silver’s body was telling her to run away from her friend as fast as she could. She realized this was because through the haze of her shitty vision, she could see light glinting off the knife in Cozy’s hand. Silver turned and ran as fast as she could, but Cozy was faster, lunging forward and grabbing her by the wrist. Silver tried to wriggle free, but Cozy’s grip was a vice.

“Cozy, let go!”

Silver then saw the shape of Cozy’s other hand bring the knife up and Silver desperately grabbed it before Cozy could bring it any closer. The two grappled, and it belatedly occurred to Silver to scream for help. As she did, she lost her footing and slipped on the slick grass, falling onto her back and dragging Cozy down on top of her.

The two of them struggled on the ground, Silver doing everything she could to keep the blade in Cozy’s hand away from her. But Cozy was slippery and erratic, and Silver sucked in air as she felt the blade cut part of her hand.

“Cozy, stop! That hurts!” Silver pleaded, her already unfocused vision blurring with terrified tears. “Stop! W-why are you doing this? We’re friends!”

“Were we though? You and Di were friends with me for your own convenience, and I was friends with you because I figured you’d help me get what I want,” Cozy said, her voice somehow as calm and cheerful as always even as she struggled to direct her knife somewhere more dangerous than Silver’s hand. “But I don’t need you anymore. I have a new friend now. Someone who’s real, like me.”

Silver almost lost her grip on Cozy’s knife hand as she felt the blade cut a deep gash in her cheek.

“OW!” Silver cried. “Please stop, Cozy! Please!”

“Shh…” Cozy whispered. “You’re almost there. You’re almost real….”

Silver tried to choke out more words through her sobs but couldn’t make her voice cooperate. It hit her with such clarity then: she was going to die. Right here, right now, at the hands of someone she thought was her friend. At the hands of someone whose apparent madness was beyond anything Silver could have possibly imagined.

Chrysalis heard the scream as she emerged from the Everfree’s treeline, but the park was dark now and she couldn’t pinpoint the exact direction the sound had come from. She couldn’t afford to waste any time and simply started sprinting in what was by her best estimate the right direction. As luck would have it, she was going the right way: the sudden taste of sheer terror assaulting her taste buds confirmed it.

It wasn’t much later that she came upon the two girls she was looking for, the both of them struggling on the ground. Cozy had Silver pinned and seemed to have her at her mercy. Chrysalis needed to act fast.

“COZY GLOW!” she shouted, allowing her voice to resonate a bit with its true changeling cadence.

There was a beat as the girl in question looked back over her shoulder at Chrysalis, who in turn was able to use the moment to confirm that she hadn’t been too late. She could hear Silver gasping for breath between sobs, and her fear and confusion radiated so strongly that it nearly knocked Chrysalis on her back, but the blue-streaked blonde stood firm.

“Oh, hi bestie!” Cozy exclaimed cheerfully as if nothing wrong was happening. “I’m sorry, if I’d known you wanted to watch, I would have invited you along.”

Chrysalis’s mind raced as she assessed the situation. Cozy’s knife hovered right above Silver’s chest, and there was still too much distance between Chrysalis and the two of them for Chrysalis to want to risk taking it from the psycho by force. Maybe she could have done it, but with Silver’s life hanging in the balance it wasn’t a risk she was willing to take. A simple telekinesis spell might have worked, but in the heat of the moment Chrysalis hadn’t even thought of it. For now, it would seem that diplomacy was her best option.

“Just step away from Silver, okay Cozy?” Chrysalis said as calmly as she could.

“Why? I’m just about to make her real.”

“I’m not going to let you hurt Silver, Cozy.”

Cozy furrowed her brow and tilted her head. “What do you mean? This is the whole reason why we’re here.”

“I mean it. Get off of her now or there will be consequences.”

Cozy’s face then twisted with the shock of betrayal. “I knew it! You just want to do it yourself, don’t you? Well, that’s not fair! You got to do Diamond! This should be my moment!”

Getting tired of saying it, Chrysalis said, “I didn’t kill Diamond. And you’re not going to kill Silver, okay?”

Lying under Cozy Glow, Silver looked up, staring past her assailant and looking right at Chrysalis. The ex-queen doubted that Silver could even see her, with her glasses gone and her eyes red with tears. In spite of that, the way Silver looked at Chrysalis was like she was finally seeing her clearly for the first time.

Cozy, meanwhile, just looked at Chrysalis like a confused puppy. “I don’t get it. You are like me, aren’t you? Even if what you say is true and you didn’t kill Diamond, you have killed others, right?”

Chrysalis looked around, confirming that her friends had followed her instructions rather than simply following her. When she was sure that was the case, she sighed, looked at Cozy and said, “Yes. I am a murderer, but I don’t want to be anymore. I was really lucky to get a second chance at life; a fresh start. If you throw your own life away over Silver Spoon now, you won’t get the second chance that I did. And neither will she for that matter.”

Cozy was silent for a moment, clearly processing what Chrysalis told her. “But it doesn’t matter, don’t you get it? She’s not real, none of them are! You and I are the only real people!”

Chrysalis tried to think of a rebuttal and couldn’t. It was clear to her now more than ever that Cozy was completely insane, and she knew, being on the other side, that there was no arguing with insane.

“You know what you have to do,” said Queen, appearing to stand over Cozy and Silver where they were on the ground. “This isn’t like Diamond Tiara, where you could just turn the other cheek. You know Cozy’s dangerous. Even if you stop her from killing Silver Spoon tonight, she won’t stop trying.”

As if trying to prove Queen’s point, Cozy said with no shortage of anger under toning her otherwise cheerful voice, “Okay, fine. I thought that the only two real people in the world could be friends, but if you believe you’re just too good for me then fine! I’ll do this myself!”

“Face it. You’re going to take someone’s life tonight, Chrys,” Queen said. “Either Silver’s through inaction, or Cozy’s for the greater good.” Queen then gave her a smile. Not quite cruel, but only almost sympathetic. “A murderer is all you’ll ever be, Chrysalis. Might as well embrace it.”

“No!” Chrysalis screamed, both in response to Queen and to seeing Cozy raise the knife above her head.

Time seemed to slow as Chrysalis lunged forward to stop Cozy, her thoughts racing too fast for the rest of the world to keep up. She wasn’t going to make it to Cozy in time to stop her with physical force. Maybe Silver could survive a single stab if Chrysalis could stop Cozy from giving her anymore, but even one stab could be fatal if Cozy’s stroke landed somewhere vital. There was no logical argument that Chrysalis could make to stop her, either. Cozy was simply too far gone to be reasoned with. Unless…unless Chrysalis tried appealing to Cozy’s own particular brand of reason.

“You have it backwards, Cozy!” Chrysalis exclaimed, and her words managed to give Cozy pause.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You said that for all of your life you thought that you were the only real person in the world, right?” Chrysalis said, grasping at straws but knowing she had to keep pushing forward anyway. “But did you ever consider the possibility that you’ve got it backwards? That the rest of the world is real and you’re the one who’s fake?”

“Pfft. That’s silly!”

“Is it? Because for all the time that I’ve known you, everything about you—your friendly demeanor, your innocent, cutesy personality—has all been fake!”

Cozy frowned. “That hurts my feelings, Chryssie. And even if that was true, what does that make you? I can see your features clearly. Does that mean you’re fake too?”

“Maybe. After all, not many people know the real me,” Chrysalis said. She then realized that now was the ideal time to do what she’d been worried she’d have to do. “But I could show you.”

Chrysalis then allowed the false face she wore every day to fall away under green fire as she showed Cozy Glow her true misshapen form. Cozy’s eyes went wide as she looked at Chrysalis’s changed appearance.

Cozy Glow didn’t understand what she was seeing. All this time she thought she could see Chrysalis for exactly who and what she was. That was why she had been so sure that Chrysalis had been real. Now though? It wasn’t just that Chrysalis’s appearance had changed to something strange and alien. Cozy was aware, at least on a subconscious level, that Chrysalis was making a big sacrifice exposing her true face for the sake of someone she didn’t even like. And just as the fog had cleared from Chrysalis’s face back at the mall when Cozy first suspected she was like her, now—in the moment Cozy was realizing she was nothing like her—the fog was creeping back over Chrysalis’s unnatural alien features. Before Cozy knew it, Chrysalis’s face was the same vague blur as everyone else’s.

“No no no no NO!” Cozy screamed. “YOU WERE REAL! I KNOW YOU WERE REAL!”

With a confused feral cry, Cozy leapt off of Silver and charged straight at Chrysalis, knife in hand. But Chrysalis breathed a sigh of relief: she knew she’d won the instant Cozy left Silver be. Cozy’s swings with the knife were wild and uncoordinated. Chrysalis kept her distance, avoiding the attacks long enough to deliver a single decisive strike to the insane girl’s chest. Winded, the curly haired psychopath crumpled to the ground with both hands clutching her chest, the knife falling to the side of her.

With Cozy now on the ground, Chrysalis bent down and picked up the pocketknife to keep Cozy from getting it and trying again. She then stood over Cozy’s prone form, tightly gripping the knife in her hand.

Even if you stop her from killing Silver Spoon tonight, she won’t stop trying, Queen’s words echoed in her mind. A murderer is all you’ll ever be, Chrysalis. Might as well embrace it.

Chrysalis put the knife away and ran over to where Silver Spoon was still lying on the ground, returning to her normal human guise in another quick burst of emerald embers. Not like it mattered; Silver likely had already seen her true form, but right now that wasn’t important. She’d figure out how to deal with it later. Perhaps saving Silver’s life would be enough to convince her to keep quiet about it?

“Are you okay, Silver?” she asked.

“I…” Silver’s voice caught in her throat for a moment, but she pulled herself together. “I think so. She just cut me a bit.”

Chrysalis offered her hand and with some hesitation, Silver took it and Chrysalis pulled her to her feet.

“You were real…I was sure of it…so sure you were real….”

The two of them then looked at Cozy, who lay on the ground muttering to herself with a thousand yard stare focused on nothing.

“What are…what do we do about her?” Silver asked.

“Honestly, I think we have no choice other than to talk to the police…about everything that happened tonight,” Chrysalis said.

Silver shifted with noticeable discomfort. “I know you don’t think much of me, Chrysalis, but I’m no snitch. If Rover and his friends get in trouble….”

“Well, you should have thought of that before you and them attacked me!” Chrysalis snapped.

Silver folded her arms in a bid to look more tough, but Chrysalis could see—and taste—right through the act. She was still shaking. “Honestly, you got out of this whole ordeal better than us. At least one of Rover’s buddies is in the hospital.”

“Yeah, put there by Cozy, not me!” Chrysalis exclaimed before reining herself in. Silver was very clearly still recovering from the trauma of what had just happened, her hostility towards Chrysalis merely a coping mechanism: something familiar for her to cling to while she processed her ordeal. “That’s exactly why we need to talk to the authorities about it. If we don’t, she’ll do it again and next time I might not be there to stop her.”

Silver held her hand to her face, squinting to see the gash made by Cozy’s knife. “I see your point,” she said, cupping her other hand over the wounded one and letting out a light hiss of pain, clearly starting to feel it now that the adrenaline was no longer rushing through her body.

Pulling out her phone, Chrysalis said, “Okay, I’m calling them now then,” and Silver Spoon nodded, still holding her injured hand. Thankfully, Cozy had not moved from her spot on the ground, completely lost in her own insane thoughts.

Chrysalis put in the three digit number that Celestia and Sable had taught her to use in emergencies, gave the operator a general explanation of what had transpired along with their location, and then put her phone in her coat pocket, making sure to keep an ear open if the operator should have any more instructions for her. But not before messaging Apple Bloom to let her know what had happened and what she was doing now. Apple Bloom had, of course, replied that she and the others were going to go back into the park to meet up with her. As Chrysalis texted her best guess at where they were in the park, Silver Spoon spoke up.

“My parents are going to give me so much shit for this,” she said.

“Again, should have thought of that before,” Chrysalis replied.

“Yeah, that’s probably fair.” Then to Chrysalis’s mild surprise, Silver said, “Thank you, by the way. Whatever else you may have done, you saved my life tonight. That’s worth something, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? Just earlier this evening I was convinced you’d murdered my best friend, and….” Silver’s voice hitched in her throat.

Chrysalis could taste the immense fear and despair emanating from Silver, only this time it wasn’t for her own life.

“These past few days have been hell,” Silver said through a trembling voice, and all at once the tears she’d been holding back since the scuffle with Cozy had finished came out in force. “I-I just…hate not knowing what happened to her. Hate feeling so helpless!”

Chrysalis wasn’t really sure what to do as Silver stood there hugging herself and crying. She didn’t particularly like Silver Spoon, but contrary to what many still thought of her, she wasn’t some heartless monster. She wanted to comfort this girl who was mourning her best friend, but was there even any point? Silver Spoon disliked Chrysalis even more than Chrysalis disliked her, even now that she was starting to doubt what she believed had happened between her and Diamond. Deciding that comfort from her wouldn’t mean anything to Silver, Chrysalis just stood there and let her finish crying. It wasn’t too long before Silver ran out of tears. She’d already shed most of them when she thought she was going to die by Cozy’s hands, so it wasn’t long.

“Just curious, what did you show her?” Silver asked, sniffing and wiping the last of her tears from her eyes.

“Sorry?”

Silver gestured to Cozy Glow, still catatonic on the ground next to them, lost in her endless diatribe of insane nonsense. “Before. When she was about to…finish me. You said you’d ‘show her the real you.’ I’m as good as blind out here without my glasses, so I didn’t see what you showed her, but whatever it was made her attack you instead of me.”

An immense sense of relief washed over Chrysalis when she realized Silver Spoon hadn’t seen her transform. Of all the shit plaguing her mind, at least that was one less thing to worry about.

“I showed her my true face,” Chrysalis simply said.

Silver actually let out a single chuckle at that. “Okay, weirdo. What’s your true face look like?”

“Like someone willing to do whatever it takes to not be like she is.”

Finally giving her the ghost of a smile, Silver said, “Whatever.”

It was around that time the two of them heard the first sirens of the police car arriving in the parking lot near the entrance in the distance. Chrysalis knew she and Silver Spoon wouldn’t ever be friends, but as she prepared to talk to the approaching police officers about the events of that night, Chrysalis knew that the truce between them would be strong.

Chapter 11 - Lost Time

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Lying on her back on the couch in Dr. Chrysoberyl’s office, Chrysalis stared at a weird splotch on the ceiling as she pondered an answer to the question her therapist had just asked.

“Things at school are better now,” Chrysalis began. “The rumor that I murdered my classmate has pretty much died, mainly because now everyone thinks Cozy Glow did it.”

“Right, and would you like to tell me a little bit about that?” Chrysoberyl asked. “The incident with her and the others who assaulted you at Darkside Park was still pretty fresh in your mind when we last spoke. I wonder if having had a good week to process it all has given you any new thoughts?”

Chrysalis thought back to when Silver Spoon and Rover had attacked her in the park about eleven days ago. A malicious and poorly conceived plan which had been thrown further off the rails when Cozy had stabbed Rover’s friend Fido and tried to do the same to Silver. Chrysalis had brought the incident up with Dr. Chrysoberyl in their session the following Wednesday but had held back a lot of the details. She still felt uncomfortable sharing just how much of herself she saw in Cozy’s homicidal insanity.

“Not really, but Cozy’s arraignment is next week,” Chrysalis replied. “She probably won’t be tried as an adult, but even then it means she’ll end up at an alternative school for delinquents like the Blanks. Either way she’s out of my hair and won’t be able to hurt anyone else, so that’s a pretty big weight off my shoulders.”

“From everything you told me, I think it’s far more likely she’ll end up institutionalized,” Chrysoberyl said before changing the topic. “And have things at home improved at all since last week?”

After the Darkside Park incident, all of the feud between Chrysalis and Diamond’s clique had come to light. All of it. Things had seemed like they were going to be okay at first. Celestia and Sable had both trusted that Chrysalis had only been defending herself when she gave them her own account of events when ECSD brought her home the night of the incident. They’d even commended her for doing what she could to protect someone she thought of as her enemy. But then the following Monday she had been summoned to Principal Luna’s office, who had been talking to Vice Principal Neighsay as well as a detective from the ECSD.

Rover and Silver Spoon (as well as Rover’s friends who attended CHS) had received suspensions, and Chrysalis herself didn’t get away unscathed either. At some point, as all of the truth had been coming out about the drama of the previous week, Chrysalis’s physical assault on Zipporwhill had come to light, and Luna struck her with a suspension as well. Fortunately, as a “first time offender,” Chrysalis was only given a week’s suspension, as was Silver Spoon. Rover, who already had quite the rap sheet, had been suspended for a month.

Naturally, Sable and Celestia had both been furious when they heard, resulting in some rather loud lectures from both of them. The rest of that week had been a pretty rough one for Chrysalis, with her parents giving her the cold shoulder for much of it.

“Things are a little better than they were last week. Celestia’s started warming up to me again, and Sable’s picking me up at the end of our session, so that probably means he doesn’t hate me at least,” Chrysalis said.

“Naturally, it’s going to take some time for the broken trust between you and your guardians to heal. Just keep working at it, and I’m sure things will go back to normal eventually.”

Chrysalis just said, “I hope so.”

In her peripheral vision, Chrysalis noticed Chrysoberyl write something down in her notebook. For some reason it always set her on edge just a tiny bit.

“Now, it’s been one week since you’ve been prescribed the Malarsen. How is everything going with that?”

With a frown, Chrysalis said, “Honestly, I haven’t been taking it regularly.”

She’d talked to Octavia about it over the weekend. Having been on the same medication when she still thought Melody was a product of a mental disorder, Octavia agreed that it really made one feel like shit.

“I see,” Chrysoberyl said. “Then, you’re still having problems with your alter?”

“That’s the thing, Queen hasn’t really been talking to me anymore,” Chrysalis said.

“Hmm, that actually makes a lot of sense,” Chrysoberyl said. “You remember what I told you last week about alters?”

“Uh, that it means ‘alternate personality,’ and is something the brain creates in response to trauma?” It’s apparently most commonly found in cases of dissociative identity disorder, and although Chrysoberyl had diagnosed Chrysalis with psychosis rather than DID, her particular case was apparently close enough for the term alter to apply.

“Exactly. You suffered terrible trauma and abuse which was too much for your mind to handle alone. Thus, it created ‘Queen’ so that you wouldn’t have to carry those burdens alone. It’s sort of a mental defense mechanism,” Chrysoberyl explained. “However, now you are finally getting the love and support you need from friends and family. You no longer need your alter to survive.” Then with a chuckle, Chrysoberyl said, “I know it sounds corny, but sometimes the best cure for a case like this is a little love and compassion.”

Chrysalis smiled. It was certainly a nice thought, but Chrysoberyl didn’t know what Queen really was. Still, something about what she said still rang true, and Chrysalis found herself leaving that Wednesday’s session feeling more optimistic about her situation than she had in a long time.

Sable was waiting for her when she got out of Chrysoberyl’s office, and together the two of them went to his car and started driving home. Or so Chrysalis thought. Instead, Sable pulled into the parking lot of a modest shopping center.

“I just have one more errand to run before we get home. Won’t take long,” Sable explained as he found a parking spot and turned the engine off.

Figuring it was probably something SIREN related, Chrysalis shrugged and got out of the car with him. There was an army surplus store tucked away in the corner of the lot. Maybe he was picking up some equipment there? But Sable turned into another store well before reaching the army surplus store, and a quick glance at the sign out front revealed it to be called Rings n’ Things. The (reinforced) window was full of gorgeous rings and necklaces on display, polished to a sparkle.

A jewelry store? Chrysalis thought, puzzled as they entered the establishment under the watchful eye of an unfriendly looking security guard behind a desk. What does Sable need with jewelry?

The interior of the store was full of more jewelry on display, and Chrysalis couldn’t help but stop and look at some of it as Sable made his way to the register.

The older woman behind the desk (and more reinforced glass) greeted him with a smile. “Good afternoon, sir. Anything I can help you with today?”

“Yes, I’m here to pick up an order. Should be under ‘Sable Loam.’”

The woman behind the desk took a moment to check the computer in front of her, then said. “Oh, here it is. Yes, I remember your order. One moment please.”

With that, the woman disappeared into a back room, leaving Sable and Chrysalis to wait. For her part, Chrysalis hadn’t heard any of the previous exchange. The ring in a nearby display case had fully absorbed her attention. Rather than the shining gold and silver of the other jewelry, this ring was an obsidian color, polished to a sheen. Fitted inside it was an intricately carved emerald that matched her eyes. Chrysalis imagined what she would look like wearing it and couldn’t help but grin.

Noticing this, Sable smiled. “Like what you see?”

Tearing her eyes away from the jewelry, Chrysalis smiled at him. “Yeah!”

Her smile went away when she returned her attention to the ring and noticed the price tag. Eighty dollars before taxes. “A tad out of my price range though.”

Sable nodded, but said nothing. He took another look at the ring in question before the woman behind the desk returned with a little black box. She opened it to show Sable, and Chrysalis saw another ring, this one a more traditional gold color fitted with a small diamond inside. Sable then proceeded to pay for it with his credit card.

“So, who’s the lucky lady?” the woman asked as the transaction processed.

With a smile and a rush of emotion that tasted sweet on Chrysalis’s tongue, Sable said, “My girlfriend. Our seven-month anniversary is this coming Friday, and because we didn’t really do anything for our six month, I wanted to do something special.”

“Ah, so this ring isn’t what I think it is?”

Sable chuckled but didn’t answer the question. With the transaction completed, Sable thanked the cashier and put the little box with the ring in his coat pocket. He then turned to Chrysalis and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, “I trust you can keep this a secret?”

With a nod, Chrysalis grinned and said, “Discretion is my specialty.”

With dinner eaten and her homework finished, Chrysalis hopped into the Minecraft server she shared with her friends. For the past week now she’d been helping Sweetie Belle build an iron farm and had been content to let her lead the charge, not being very familiar with the game yet. In spite of the fact that Chrysalis didn’t entirely know what she was doing, she still enjoyed her time in the game. It was a good alternative to hanging out in person now that there was a curfew. The recent disappearances made everyone’s parents much more reluctant to let them go out in person.

“Oh, you girls are in for a treat! My granny says she wants to make her special apple crumble for the sleepover on Friday,” Apple Bloom said in the Steam voice chat.

“Ooh, that’s nice. Been a while since I had your granny’s cooking,” Sweetie said.

Scootaloo was in the voice chat as well, but technical issues with her microphone meant she had to reply using the in-game text chat.

<Scootscoot420> Noice

The sleepover was something the three of them had been planning for a good couple of weeks now. They had, of course, invited Chrysalis to join them, but the frequency and intensity of her nightmares at the time had convinced her it was a bad idea and she had politely declined. However, as Chrysalis walked her in-game avatar up to a blocky bed to set her spawn, it occurred to her that maybe things had changed since then.

“Well, I hope your granny makes enough for one more, because I think I’m going to come after all!” she said.

This was met with genuine sounding surprise from her friends.

“Really?” Sweetie Belle squeaked.

“That’s great!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

<Scootscoot420> Awwww shit son!

“Yeah, I’ll definitely let my family know to expect one more.”

A slumber party was something Chrysalis had been interested in experiencing since she started living with Celestia and Sable, and as the topic of conversation switched to other things, Chrysalis found herself unable to stop thinking about it. She was so excited, in fact, that she couldn’t help but feel a little mischievous. High up on an elaborate stone tower, Chrysalis could see Scootaloo’s blocky avatar as she continued building the impressive looking structure ever higher. Chrysalis flicked her mouse wheel to equip her bow and arrow, and took aim at Scootaloo’s avatar high above her, snickering audibly as she did so.

“Oh god, why is Chrys laughing?” Sweetie asked, sounding amused and concerned in equal measure. Chrysalis had quickly established a reputation among her friends for bringing chaos to their Minecraft server when she felt it appropriate.

Chrysalis let her digital arrow fly and it hit its mark. Chrysalis giggled as she saw Scootaloo’s avatar get knocked back and disappear behind her own creation.

<Scootscoot420> hit the ground too hard.

<Scootscoot420> godammit chrys

“Oh. That’s why,” Sweetie said, unable to contain a snicker of her own.

“Don’t blame me, I’m a Capricorn!” Chrysalis exclaimed, and Sweetie Belle groaned.

It was a running joke among the group of friends ever since the previous week, when Sweetie had unironically said the same thing during an argument with Scootaloo. Whatever the original context of the argument had been was forgotten, but Sweetie’s utterly ridiculous excuse for whatever Scootaloo was mad about had quite effectively broken the tension and now lived in the group’s lexicon as a permanent fixture, much to the girl’s chagrin.

“You guys are never going to let me live that down, are you?”

<Scootscoot420> lol nope

<Scootscoot420> was blown up by a creeper

<Scootscoot420> FUCK

“Don’t blame me, I’m a Capricorn,” Apple Bloom muttered with a chuckle. “Are you actually a Capricorn, Chrys?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Chrysalis said, venturing over to where she figured Scootaloo had landed to make sure none of her items despawned. She may have enjoyed messing with her friends in the game, but she always made sure they never actually lost any of their hard work.

“You don’t know your star sign?” Apple Bloom asked.

Chrysalis shrugged, momentarily forgetting that her friends couldn’t see her. “Nah, I’ve never really cared much for astrology.”

Then, Apple Bloom asked the question that quite effectively took Chrysalis out of the good mood she was feeling. “Well, when’s your birthday?”

Chrysalis didn’t answer, for the simple reason that she couldn’t. She’d been familiar with the concept of birthdays shortly after first coming into power as Queen Chrysalis in Equestria. For all of her centuries ruling, she’d always believed that birthday celebrations were something that only ponies did; it certainly wasn’t a tradition celebrated in what was now called the pre-Renaissance Tuscan states. The modern calendar hadn’t even been invented yet. But as she’d come to live on Earth again, she discovered that birthday celebrations were something modern humans did as well. But before now, it was never something that Chrysalis really gave much thought. There were always bigger issues on her mind.

“Chrys? You there? Are you having mic problems now too?”

“No, I’m here. Sorry AB,” she said.

“So, when’s your birthday?”

Seeing that her friends weren’t going to drop it, Chrysalis answered the only way she knew how. “I don’t know.”

Chrysalis could hear the disbelief in Sweetie’s voice when she asked, “You don’t know your own birthday?”

Chrysalis shook her head—once again forgetting that her friends couldn’t see her. “Where I came from, birthdays weren’t really a thing.”

“You mean, you’ve never celebrated your birthday?” Sweetie’s voice sounded like it was about to break.

“Nope.”

<Scootscoot420> wait really???

“Yeah, but it’s no big deal,” Chrysalis said as she rounded the corner of Scootaloo’s tower and saw the pile of items left where she’d hit the ground. Then in an effort to change the subject, Chrysalis said, “Sweetie, you still need that redstone for your powered rails?”

“Oh yeah, you got some?”

Grinning, Chrysalis said, “Scootaloo’s about to make a donation.”

<Scootscoot420> HEY

With that, Chrysalis had successfully brought the topic of conversation back to the game, with the awkward topic of her birthday having been (hopefully) forgotten. The four of them continued playing the game for another twenty minutes or so before Apple Bloom decided to call it a night. Seeing as it was a school night, Chrysalis decided to do the same, and logged out after telling Scootaloo not to stay up too late playing again.

<Scootscoot420> your not the boss of me

Heading to the bathroom to start getting ready for bed, Chrysalis found Celestia doing the same. The older woman was in her PJs—a tanktop and sweatpants—standing over the sink as she brushed her teeth. Chrysalis just stood outside the door and waited patiently.

“All yours,” Celestia said when she was finished, brushing past Chrysalis in the hallway as she headed to her bedroom. “Night, Chrys.”

Celestia wasn’t still mad at her—Chrysalis knew how Celestia’s anger tasted—but the cold distance wasn’t any sweeter.

It’ll just take time, Chrysalis reminded herself. It suddenly occurred to Chrysalis to ask Celestia about what was recently on her mind.

“Hey, Mom?”

Celestia stopped halfway to her bedroom and turned around. “Yes, Chrys?”

“Do I…?” Chrysalis hesitated, not really sure how to say it. “Do I have a birthday?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a way we could ever know for sure when your real birthday is,” Celestia said. “Legally, you were born on October 2^nd, 2002. When putting together your paperwork, I just chose that as your birthday because that’s around the time we would have met in Equestria.”

“Ah,” Chrysalis said. The full meaning of that suddenly hit her. “So, I’m fourteen already?” she asked, and Celestia nodded. “I’ve been telling everyone who’s asked that I’m thirteen.”

“Right, I’m sorry for not telling you about it, Chrys,” Celestia said. “That’s a pretty big oversight on our part.”

With a shrug (this time the person she was talking to could see it), Chrysalis said, “It’s okay. Aside from tonight, it’s never really come up, so no risk of getting exposed.”

“What happened tonight?”

“Oh, nothing big. My friends just asked me when my birthday was, and I told them I didn’t have one. Guess I can tell them otherwise now. They seemed pretty disappointed.”

Celestia seemed lost in thought at that particular moment. “Right, understandable.”

Chrysalis suddenly remembered what else she had talked about with her friends tonight, and the issue of her birthday all but forgotten, she said, “Oh! So, I decided to go to the sleepover with my friends on Friday.”

“You did? That’s great!” Celestia exclaimed. “What changed your mind?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Chrysalis said. “I haven’t had any really bad nightmares lately, and Queen has been silent. I don’t know, I just have this feeling like…everything’s cool, you know?”

At long last, Celestia gave her a smile, and its warmth filled her right up. “That’s good to hear, Chrys.”

After a short moment in which neither really knew what to say next, Chrysalis said, “Alright, I’m gonna brush my teeth now. Night Mom!”

“Goodnight.”

Heading into the bathroom, Chrysalis didn’t notice Celestia lingering in the hallway outside of her bedroom door, deep in thought. Finally, rather than continue inside to bed, she turned and went back down the hall to the living room where Sable was still working.

“We’re horrible parents,” Celestia said.

“I see you’ve already mastered the parental histrionics you’d told me you’ve seen from Velvet,” he said with a grin as he looked up from his laptop.

“Cute,” she replied cattily.

Sable furrowed his brow. “Seriously, though, I think all things considered, we’ve done a pretty good job with Chrys. Where’s this coming from?”

Sitting down across from him, Celestia said, “It’s bad enough when parents forget their child’s birthday. It’s another thing to forget to tell their child that they even have a birthday.”

Sable winced. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

The two sat there in contemplative silence for a moment. Sable seemed lost in thought, his laptop screen all but forgotten. At last, with a faint “hmm,” Sable grinned.

“What are you thinking?” Celestia asked.

“That there’s a way for us to set this right.”

Sable sped along the road towards the Blanks well above the speed limit, hoping he wouldn’t get pulled over. He’d already come close to running a few red lights—they had still been yellow, but only barely—not that it ultimately mattered. He was already late for his first period class thanks to an unexpected (but minor) incident involving SIREN business.

“Hey Sunset, can you do me a favor?” Sable had asked as the two of them surveyed the morning weapons training Troubleshoes was conducting with the ATG.

“Sure, what’s up?” Sunset asked.

Sable reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring he had purchased yesterday.

Sunset let out a mock gasp. “Sable, I’m flattered! But what will my family say?”

“Very funny,” Sable said in a tone that indicated otherwise.

“I thought it was,” Sunset said with a snicker. “Seriously though, is that for who I think it is?”

“Maybe. I was wondering if you could work some of your magic on it.”

“Of course. Just the basic stuff?” Sable nodded, and Sunset said, “Yeah, I’ll work on it tonight. Shouldn’t take long at all.”

“If that’s the case, would you mind doing a second one?”

Sunset seemed mildly perplexed by the request, but nonetheless answered, “Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem.”

That had been when all of the lights in the underground bunker suddenly went out. The backups kicked in quickly, but Sable and the triplets had all been convinced they were under attack and mobilized accordingly. It had turned out to all be for nought—all that had happened was one of the construction workers building the residence on the property had accidentally hit a buried power cable.

The incident had, however, prompted Troubleshoes to pull Sable aside for a brief chat.

“The training for the ATG is going really well. It’s clear these ladies were the real deal back in their homeland,” the big man told him. “But their cohesion just now was…sloppy. I don’t think they’re quite used to working as a team yet.”

Sable nodded. “Even I noticed that. I figured it was just that they’re still not used to our methods of warfare.”

“Oh, I think that’s a big part of it as well. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, actually.”

“Well, if you have any ideas, I’m all ears,” Sable said.

Giving him a hard look, Troubleshoes said, “We need to give them a taste of real modern combat.”

“A live fire exercise?”

Troubleshoes nodded. “I’m still trying to figure out the details of how to proceed myself. I’d like to do a little more than just take them to a paintball arena.”

“I know what you mean, but it’s going to be tricky finding a way to do it that doesn’t draw attention,” Sable said, checking his watch. That had been the moment he’d realized he was going to be late. “Look, I’ve gotta go, but I’ll look into it and let you know what I find.”

“Thanks, Sable.”

Sending a quick text to one of his coworkers, Sable sprinted to his car. Now, he found himself sprinting out of his car and through the staff entrance of the Blanks. At twenty-five minutes past nine, Sable arrived at his classroom, where his colleague Red Horse was currently giving his history lecture, and by the looks of it bullshitting her way through most of it.

Still standing out in the hall, Sable waved to get her attention and the stocky redheaded woman paused her lecture and left the bored looking students to meet him.

“Thanks again for this, Red,” Sable said. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Just get me one night with that girlfriend of yours and I’ll call it even.”

Sable knew she was only joking. Probably.

“Seriously though, Sable. This is the third time in two weeks I’ve had to cover for you now,” Red continued. Now Sable knew she definitely wasn’t joking. “Seriously dude, if the stars hadn’t aligned for me to have a free period each time, you’d be shit out of luck.”

Sable didn’t need her to tell him he’d been pushing it lately. “I know.”

“Whatever’s going on in your life that’s got you stretched so thin, you need to figure that shit out sooner than later!” Red exclaimed. “I can’t keep doing this for you.”

She was absolutely right, of course, but all Sable could do was give her another meager “thank you” as she turned and left. Then taking a moment to collect himself, Sable entered his classroom.

“Okay, who wants to tell me where Ms. Horse left off?” he asked.

One of his students raised his hand and let him know, and Sable continued with the lecture on autopilot, his heart and mind not into it. “Stretched thin” had been the term Red Horse had used, and it was apt. His work at the Blanks was very much suffering for it. As the day went on, Sable realized with increasing certainty that it was past time he decided what his future was going to look like.

It was Thursday, and as such Chrysalis had her weekly meetup with the movie club at the end of the school day. Things were a little awkward between her and Star Tracker now, but that didn’t mean Chrysalis still didn’t enjoy watching and talking about movies with him and the other club members. Chrysalis hadn’t told him that she’d overheard his conversation with his friends back when everyone at school thought she’d killed a classmate, and she honestly didn’t feel the need to. What purpose would it serve? Better to just let the whole thing rest. However, when Chrysalis walked into the classroom the movie club regularly used, she was greeted with an unexpected surprise.

“Haaaaaaappy birthday to you!” Juniper Montage and the other club members sang, all standing around a cake with white frosting and lit candles on one of the desks. “Happy birthday to you!”

Chrysalis’s mind was a whirlwind of thought and she was surprised to find herself overcome with emotion. It wasn’t her birthday; it wasn’t even the fake birthday that Celestia had told her she had. Still, somehow her movie club had prepared this surprise for her (perhaps Apple Bloom and the others had talked to them earlier today because of the conversation they had the previous night?) and Chrysalis inexplicably found her voice catching in her throat as a warm smile crossed her face.

“Happy birthday dear Star Tracker!”

Chrysalis’s smile disappeared in an instant, and her face turning faintly red, Chrysalis looked over her shoulder to see that Star had entered the classroom right behind her as the rest of the club finished the song.

“Happy birthday to you!”

“Wow, thanks guys!” Star said as he walked past an increasingly flustered Chrysalis towards his birthday cake. “You totally didn’t have to do this.”

“Yeah, we didn’t have to, but it’s a good excuse to have cake with this week’s movie,” Juniper said as she cut out the first piece and put it on a plate for the apparent birthday boy. She then looked up at Chrysalis, who was still standing awkwardly by the door. “Well, come on Chrys. Aren’t you going to have some cake with us?”

Suddenly remembering herself, Chrysalis nodded and joined the group around the desk, grabbing a paper plate to put a slice on. Star Tracker was beside her, happily biting into his own with a plastic fork.

“Didn’t know it was your birthday,” Chrysalis said, then added as an afterthought, “Happy birthday.”

“Technically yesterday was my birthday, but I mentioned it to Film Reel’s sister and I guess she mentioned it to him who mentioned it to Juni.”

Chrysalis just grunted and nodded, then took her slice of cake and went to eat it at one of the desks in the corner of the room. Its sweetness was of little comfort to the inexplicable feeling of crushing disappointment Chrysalis felt.

“Hey,” Star said. Chrysalis looked up from her piece of cake to see that he had taken a seat at the desk beside hers. “Is everything good? You don’t quite seem like yourself today.”

“Fine,” Chrysalis said, taking another bite of cake to avoid having to elaborate further.

Star didn’t look convinced, but didn’t seem inclined to pursue the matter any further, as he too took a bite of his birthday cake.

“You know, it occurs to me I might owe you an apology,” he said after a moment. Chrysalis raised a brow and looked up from her cake at him. “Two weeks back, y’know, when everyone was saying…those things about you, I…I think I kinda believed them.”

Chrysalis said nothing back and gave him a calm, patient glare which prompted him to continue. “In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious you wouldn’t hurt anyone. You are a huge dork, after all.”

Finally allowing herself a small smile, Chrysalis said, “I take umbrage to that assertion.” Still, he was sweet to say so. Dead wrong, of course. But still sweet.

“If it seems like I’ve been more distant lately, it’s because I feel like a huge jerk whenever I’m around you now. You were clearly going through a hard time before, and as your friend I should have been there for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t.” Then with a humorous but no less sincere smile, Star said, “Think you could forgive a stupid idiot?”

With a mischievous smile of her own, Chrysalis said, “Star, I could never hate you for being stupid any more than I could hate a trash can for being full of garbage.”

Star chuckled. “Oof. Harsh, but fair.”

With a chuckle of her own, Chrysalis said, “You don’t have to worry, though. That’s not what’s bothering me.”

“Oh. Well, seeing as I’m a stupid trash can, care to explain in simple terms what exactly is bothering you?”

Chrysalis shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s kinda dumb.”

“Then I should understand it perfectly.”

Chrysalis didn’t answer for a number of moments, and she honestly considered just saying nothing. But then she opened her mouth and said, “When the rest of the club started singing, I thought it was for me.”

“Oh.” Star then did a double-take. “Wait, is it your birthday too?”

“No, that’s the stupid part. I’ve never even celebrated my birthday before.” Unable to continue looking Star in the eye, Chrysalis looked down at her slice of cake and pushed a piece of it around with her fork. “For so many years I didn’t think I needed to. I always thought birthdays were an asinine tradition and, I don’t know. I just thought I was above it all, but now….”

Chrysalis sighed and a tight pain gripped her throat as she realized what all of this thought of birthdays was really about the moment she said, “I just have so much lost time to make up for.”

Chrysalis managed to hold herself together, if for no other reason than she refused to become known as the girl who cried into a piece of cake in the corner of the movie club. But the realization that she may never truly be able to get back centuries of lost time hurt more deeply than even she could have expected.

The weight of her thoughts dragged down the rest of what was usually an enjoyable after school club until it was time to leave. With her head hung low, Chrysalis made her way through the empty halls towards the school exit. With her gaze quite firmly focused on the floor, Chrysalis wasn’t looking where she was going and nearly bumped into a smartly dressed older female figure.

“Whoops, sorry Principal Luna,” she said.

Principal Luna, who also appeared to be on her way out, smiled at her and said, “Chrys, I’m off the clock. Just ‘Luna’ is fine. Or…” Luna seemed hesitant. “Auntie Luna, if you like.”

Chrysalis just grunted an acknowledgement and continued on her way. Luna fell into step beside her, evidently also heading to the school’s main entrance.

“You seem a little glum, everything okay?” Luna asked as they walked.

“Fine. Well, not really, but you know…” Chrysalis said, hoping to simply leave it at that.

“Well, you know what always picks me up when I’m feeling down?” Luna asked. “Some delicious greasy food.”

Chrysalis finally pulled her gaze away from her own feet to look at Luna curiously. She was feeling hungry, owed to her rather light lunch.

“As it happens, I was thinking of grabbing a bite myself,” Luna continued. “Care to join me?”

Allowing herself a little smile, Chrysalis asked, “Where we going?”

“My favorite local greasy spoon, the Sweet Spot. Ever been?”

Chrysalis shook her head, and Luna gave her a deadly serious look. “Well, we have to rectify that immediately. You haven’t lived until you’ve had the Canterburger!”

Taking a breath, Sable knocked on the door to Principal Sombra’s office. This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation.

“Come on in,” the deep bass of Sombra’s voice answered the knock, and Sable stepped into the office. “Ah, evening Sable. What can I do for you?”

Closing the door behind him, Sable took the seat in front of Sombra’s desk. “Sombra, I’m going to cut right to the chase.”

Sable then took out the document he had put together after classes had ended and placed it on the desk in front of Sombra, who looked at it with a contemplative frown. “Ah, this is…?”

“My two weeks' notice,” Sable said. “I figure I’ll finish off the rest of this semester, and then after the holidays, I’ll be gone.”

Sombra put on his reading glasses as he went over Sable’s letter of resignation a bit more thoroughly. “Well, I wish I could say this was a surprise but honestly, the bigger surprise is that you waited this long.”

Sable didn’t really know what to say to that. He and Sombra had already had more than one discussion about his recent performance.

“Have to say, as disappointed as I am by this outcome, I think you’ve made the right choice,” Sombra said, putting the letter back down on his desk. “I take it this mysterious ‘other job’ of yours has been working out well?”

Sable nodded. “It is. Though, if I’m being honest it isn’t the only reason why I’m quitting.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, just last night something came to my attention that made me realize my work at the Blanks hasn’t been the only thing that’s been suffering recently.”

Understanding filled Sombra’s eyes. “Your family?”

Nodding again, Sable said, “My dau…uh, little girl in particular. She’s been through a pretty rough patch recently and I regret not having the time to really be there for her.”

“Of course, I understand completely,” Sombra said, filing away Sable’s letter of resignation (as well as the rest of the paperwork on his desk) into one of his desk drawers. “Still, I hate to see you go. I think you really made a difference to the students in the short time you were here. And if you ever find yourself wanting to go back to teaching, just give me a call. At the very least I can give you some recommendations.”

“Thank you Sombra. For everything.”

The two men stood and shook hands. All in all, Sable thought that could have gone a lot worse.

“Hey, why don’t we grab a bite together like old times?” Sombra suggested. “I skipped lunch, and was thinking of grabbing a burger somewhere.”

Sable thought about it. He and Celestia didn’t have any particular plans for dinner tonight. In fact, she had told him that she expected to be at the office kind of late.

“Yeah, I could eat,” Sable said. “Where to?”

The name “The Sweet Spot” adorned the front of the restaurant in big glowing yellow letters. They were somewhat evocative of the golden arches of a certain other much more widespread fast food chain. Below the name was written in smaller script, HOME OF THE WORLD-FAMOUS CANTERBURGER.

“Is this ‘Canterburger’ really world-famous?” Chrysalis asked Luna as the two of them entered the establishment.

“I should hope so, the world needs to know about it!” Luna proclaimed.

With a grin, Chrysalis said, “You’re really hyping this burger up. I feel like it can’t be anything but disappointing now.”

Matching her niece’s grin, Luna said, “Well, I hope you’re feeling hungry, because you’re going to eat those words as well as the burger!”

As it happened, Luna was right. The Canterburger was delicious and unlike anything she’d ever tasted before. She’d had burgers before; once when Sable grilled some up in her first week living with them and another time from the very same cheap fast food chain whose golden arches reigned across the world. Each of those paled in comparison to the burger she was putting away now, with its perfect mix of bacon, sauces and vegetable toppings.

“Alright, you win. This burger deserves to be bronzed and put in the Smithsonian,” Chrysalis said, eliciting a bark of laughter from Luna.

“Right?” she said. “I only just discovered this place relatively recently, and I don’t know how I lived without it all my life.”

Her smile slowly vanishing, Chrysalis looked down at the literal food for thought in front of her. She had lived without a lot more than the Canterburger for most of her very long life.

“Chrys?” Luna said. Chrysalis looked up from the half eaten burger to Luna’s curious frown. “I know we’ve never been terribly close—one reason I brought you here was to try to change that—but we are family. I hope you know you can confide in me with whatever’s troubling you.”

“Am I that transparent?” Chrysalis asked before seeking comfort in another delicious bite.

“I’ve been around long enough to pick up on these things.”

Swallowing her bite of burger, Chrysalis explained, “I’ve just recently been thinking about how much time I’ve lost. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with my new life now, but it’s been full of so many firsts, and there’s still so many firsts yet to come. It just feels like…like there isn’t enough time.”

“Believe it or not, I know what you mean,” Luna said. “Did my sister ever tell you about my edgelord phase?”

“She told me you called yourself ‘Nightmare Moon’, which is a funny coincidence in itself, and that she broke your arm.”

“Yeah. The fact is, my whole stint as ‘Nightmare Moon’ caused me to miss a lot. Birthdays and other important occasions. We even had a bunch of family visit from Italy, and I was so busy being…well, Nightmare Moon to even show my face.” Luna sighed, and Chrysalis could tell that some of that regret lingered even now. “My paternal grandfather had apparently been at that family gathering. He absolutely doted on me when I was little, and I loved him dearly, but I hadn’t seen him since my family moved to the States.”

After a not-insignificant length of silence, Luna sighed and said, “He passed away some time after returning to Italy.”

“I’m sorry,” Chrysalis said, the words feeling useless but unable to conjure any more.

“Thanks, but it was a long time ago,” Luna said. “Still, what hurts the most even now is that I had a chance to see him one last time but had my head too far up my ass to bother. He hadn’t seen me since I was a very young child, and I’m sure he would have loved to see the young woman I’d grown into. Of course, considering who that young woman had been then, maybe it’s for the best that he died remembering a more innocent Luna.”

“I…see.”

“It’s not quite the same as your situation, I know, but I think you can take the same lesson from it as I did.”

“And that is?”

Luna took a sip of the Pepsi she got with her food before answering, “Enjoy the moment and take nothing for granted. Instead of dwelling on all you’ve missed out on, focus on everything you’re a part of here and now.”

Chrysalis took some time to reflect on that as she finished her burger. Luna was right, and it wasn’t like Chrysalis didn’t still have her whole life ahead of her. In fact, Chrysalis wasn’t even sure how long she still had. She’d already lived for centuries in Equestria. Would she return to a normal human lifespan now that she was back on Earth? Or would she continue to outlive her friends and family? An entirely different problem to worry about, to be sure, but ultimately one Chrysalis decided not to concern herself with. She decided she would follow Luna’s advice and just live in the present for now.

“Luna?” a familiar voice spoke up towards the entrance of the restaurant.

“Oh, hello Sable. What a coincidence running into you here,” Luna said. “I just thought I’d take Chrys out for some aunt-niece bonding.”

Shifting in her seat, Chrysalis turned to look over her shoulder. “Hey Dad!” was what she had intended to say, but the greeting died in her throat when she saw that Sable wasn’t alone.

Another man was standing next to him, his familiar black hair and red eyes turning Chrysalis’s veins to ice. She found herself gazing upon the face from her nightmares; the face she saw when murder first entered her heart. All at once, Chrysalis found herself far away from the present moment—in direct opposition to Luna’s now forgotten advice moments before. Chrysalis was back in the confines of the Crystal Palace, bloodied, half naked, and alone with the cruel king.

“Ah, Luna. Good to see you,” Sombra said, an undercurrent of menace in the dark king’s voice.

He then turned his gaze to Chrysalis, who suddenly felt small and helpless. “And this must be the ‘Chrys’ I’ve heard so much about,” he said, but all Chrysalis heard was, My pet Rose.

King Sombra then reached out towards her; to strike her, to hold her down and…have his way with her, Chrysalis didn’t know which. Likely both, not necessarily in that order.

“Stammi lontano, bastardo!” Chrysalis cried out, her half-remembered mother tongue spilling forth from her lips as naturally as breathing as she knocked aside Sombra’s outstretched hand and followed up with a punch to the stomach as hard as she could muster.

The man’s eyes bulged out of their sockets and he lurched forward as he staggered back into a table with a clatter. The startled shriek of another customer was what brought Chrysalis back to reality. She realized that the man now crumpled on the floor in front of her was clearly an ordinary human and not a unicorn with horrifying dark magic. Chrysalis supposed that the idea of him having a counterpart on Earth had occurred to her before, but figured her chances of encountering him were slim to none.

Chrysalis then looked around. Luna had her hand over her mouth in shock. Sable was staring at her with a mortified expression on his face—one she realized he’d been wearing the moment he saw her sitting with Luna. The confused, judgemental stares of the staff and other customers of the Sweet Spot were what ultimately drove Chrysalis to seek out an escape, and her hands still trembling, she bolted for the door.

Seeing this, Sable immediately knew he had to go after her, and quickly glanced at Sombra as the man struggled to pull himself up with a hand on the table he’d crashed into.

“Luna?” Sable asked.

Luna understood immediately. “I’ve got him, you just go get her.”

Giving her an appreciative nod, Sable turned and went out the front door after Chrysalis. Luna moved to Sombra’s side and helped him to his feet. “I’m so sorry, are you alright?” she asked.

“Fine,” Sombra said with a slight wince. “I’ve taken worse hits than that.”

The server who had brought Luna and Chrysalis their burgers was now next to them and had brought out her phone. “Should I call the police?” she said.

Luna tried desperately to think of a reason for her not to, but Sombra beat her to it. “No, that won’t be necessary, it was an accident. The kid and I were just horsing around and me, being the clumsy oaf that I am, slipped and fell. My fault entirely. Sorry about that.”

The server didn’t look convinced, but nevertheless said, “If you say so,” before rushing off, likely to grab something with which to clean up the mess.

“Appreciate that, Sombra,” Luna said when the server was gone. The two of them took a seat at Luna’s table, Sombra sitting in the seat previously occupied by Chrysalis. “I take it Sable told you about her background, then?”

“Not in any detail, but enough to paint a pretty clear picture,” Sombra answered, shaking his head with a sigh. “Poor kid must have been through hell to have a trauma response like that.”

“She has, and it occurred to me just now that you bear an unfortunate striking resemblance to her abuser,” Luna explained.

Sombra nodded and said, “Mm, I had a feeling it was something like that.” Then with a grin, he added, “I know I have a kind of scary appearance, but it never caused a reaction like that before.”

“And here I was thinking you hadn’t taken it personally,” Luna said with a chuckle.

The two were quiet for a bit, neither knowing what else to say, before Sombra apparently thought of something. “You know, I always felt like Sable was deliberately avoiding the topic of introducing me to his daughter whenever it came up. Guess now I know why.”

“Can you really blame him?”

“Of course not. Even if her reaction to seeing me hadn’t been that bad, I perfectly understand his desire to protect that girl,” Sombra said. “Honestly? I think being a father suits him.”

“I wasn’t entirely convinced myself at first, but I have to admit, he’s really taken to the role,” Luna said.

“Well, taking in a girl who’s been through even half of what I’m told Chrysalis has been through would be hard even for experienced parents. For Sable and Celestia to not only do it in spite of their inexperience as parents, but to excel at it as far as I can tell…I don’t think anyone else could do that.”

“Yeah, my sister’s always had a habit of biting off more than she can chew.”

“Oh trust me, I know,” Sombra said with a nostalgic grin. “It’s just like her.”

Luna smiled, and for a moment the two of them were lost in thoughts of times long past, until Sombra lifted his shirt to check the skin where Chrysalis had punched him. Sure enough, a large bruise was forming.

“Damn, that kid can really hit though,” he said. “She’s a lot stronger than she looks.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

Sable found Chrysalis sitting on the edge of the curb a short distance down the street from the Sweet Spot. Her knees pulled close to her chest, she had her phone in her hand, but Sable didn’t think she was looking at anything in particular.

“Hey, Chrys,” Sable said, making sure to clearly announce himself before getting within punching distance. “May I sit?”

Her only answer was a shrug, which was as good an invitation as Sable was likely to get, so he sat on the curb next to her.

“Probably a dumb question, but how are you feeling?” he asked.

“Like an idiot,” Chrysalis said with a sigh.

“Why? Because you’re still dealing with trauma?”

“No. Because I thought I was finally done dealing with it,” Chrysalis said, finally looking away from her phone and at Sable. “But as soon as I saw his face…it was like I was back there.”

“Well, that’s the shitty thing about trauma: you’re never really done dealing with it, and you never know what’s going to set it off.” Sable was speaking from experience, and he was pretty sure Chrysalis knew it, because she didn’t say anything back.

It was after a few moments of silence that she asked, “Is he okay?”

She was clearly trying not to say his name, but Sable knew who she meant. “He’ll be fine. The only thing you bruised was his ego. We can only hope that the students at the Blanks don’t find out their principal was knocked on his ass by a freshman girl half his size.”

That managed to get a smile out of Chrysalis, at least. Or maybe it was a wince. It was hard to tell. It occurred to Sable then that this was her first time learning about who Sombra’s human counterpart actually was.

“I’m sorry, Chrys. I should have told you he was my boss.”

“You think?” Chrysalis deadpanned. Her look softened in a moment. “I can see why you didn’t, though. You probably weren’t counting on us ever meeting.”

Sable nodded. “Yeah. Today was…unlucky.”

“I always knew it was a possibility that he’d have a human counterpart, but…was it too much to hope that he would be living on the other side of the world…if he needed to be living at all?”

“Perfectly understandable.”

About a minute of silence passed as the two of them watched the cars go by on the moderately busy street.

“I should probably apologize to him,” Chrysalis finally said.

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“No. If I’m being honest, even knowing that he isn’t the monster I knew…I’d really rather not see him again.”

“Well, you’re in luck. Now that I’ve quit my job, the chances of that are even slimmer,” Sable said, and Chrysalis gave him a puzzled look.

“You quit your job?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Sable said, giving her a smile. “I have other things I’d like to focus on.”

Chrysalis gave him a smile back. It was a genuinely touching sentiment, even if she suspected she wasn’t the only reason for Sable’s rearranging of priorities. She decided to let him have this small victory. No need to burden him with what she was really thinking.

“Come on, let’s go home,” Sable said, standing up and offering his hand to help her up.

Chrysalis supposed this meant she was absolved of making her apology, which she was honestly very okay with. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.

“You sure?” Chrysalis asked, taking the offered hand. “I could just take the bus or get a ride with Luna if you still want to eat with…with your friend.”

“I can always eat with him another time. He’ll understand,” Sable said. “Right now, I think it’s more important for the two of us to go home, take some ice cream out of the freezer and put on High School Musical.”

Chrysalis smiled. “But you hate High School Musical.”

“Well, maybe it’s grown on me,” Sable said, then grinned. “Besides, I need to think of ways to train the ATG in torture resistance. A few Blu-Rays probably cost less than creating a SERE course.”

“Pfft. Shut up,” she replied, and the two of them laughed

Yes, Chrysalis couldn’t deny it: Sable was doing a fantastic job of making her feel better. Even so, she couldn’t stop thinking about her lost time. Her conversation with Luna before the incident had helped her feel a little better about it. But as soon as the proverbial dust settled from her encounter with the human Sombra, Chrysalis found her thoughts dwelling on the very same problem.

Yes, she still had her whole life ahead of her to gain back her lost time. But now Chrysalis wondered whether it was ever something she could truly get back.

The following day was Friday, the day of the planned sleepover at Apple Bloom’s. In spite of the incident the previous day, Chrysalis didn’t have any particularly bad nightmares that night. Just the same, she was having second thoughts about whether she should go to the sleepover after all. She expected understanding disappointment from her friends when she told them what had happened at the restaurant yesterday and that it was making her have second thoughts about the slumber party. She wasn’t, however, expecting the wide-eyed, deer in the headlights stares from all three of them.

“Wait, y-you have to come!” Scootaloo exclaimed with a hint of desperation in her voice.

“Yeah! You can’t back out now, it’ll mess up everything,” Sweetie added.

“What are you talking about?” Chrysalis asked.

The two of them exchanged a look, each looking to the other for an answer.

“Um…” Sweetie said.

“Uh…” stammered Scootaloo.

“My parents…already bought the ingredients for the dinner,” Apple Bloom said with a smile that was just a tad too wide. “Yeah, and the portions are exactly for one extra person.”

Chrysalis was perplexed. Why were they acting so weird?

“Listen, Chrys…if you really don’t want to sleep over, that’s fine. But won’t you at least come for dinner?” Sweetie asked, ever the diplomat, putting on a much more convincing smile.

Chrysalis figured that much couldn’t hurt, and noted the obvious release of tension in the air when she said as such.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and soon enough the last bell rang of the day and students spilled forth from the school doors.

“Remember, come no earlier than six,” Apple Bloom said. “I want to make sure everything’s nice and tidy at the house first.”

She meant it for all of them, of course, but Chrysalis couldn’t help but get the feeling that she was talking to her specifically. Regardless, she acknowledged the directive, gave her friends a wave goodbye and then proceeded to get on her bus home, where she would find a way to kill time for a couple of hours. She was mildly surprised to find Celestia already at home when she arrived.

“Oh, hey Mom. What are you doing home so early?” Chrysalis asked.

“Took the afternoon off at Sable’s request,” Celestia answered. “He seems to think I’ve been working too hard lately.”

Thinking of the crazy hours she had seen Sable awake and working, Chrysalis said, “Kinda feels like the pot calling the kettle black, doesn’t it?” Of course, now that he’s quitting his job teaching, maybe that no longer applies.

“Maybe, but he’s right. I have to admit, it’s been nice to get home while the sun is still up for a change.” Celestia then asked. “Still going to your friends’ sleepover?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure about the sleepover part, but I’ll at least stay for dinner.”

“Well, why don’t Sable and I drive you? He’s taking me out to dinner and Apple Bloom’s place is in the area.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

With that, Chrysalis retreated to her room and killed some time reading and watching videos on YouTube. When five o’clock rolled around, she set out a change of clothes and her toiletry bag and hesitated. She didn’t have to stick around for the slumber party. In all honesty, she probably wasn’t going to. But she decided it couldn’t hurt to pack for it anyways.

At around five thirty Sable arrived home and ten minutes later the three of them got into the car and started driving. As they drove along, Chrysalis couldn’t help but notice the tense glances Sable kept taking in the rear-view mirror. Out of curiosity, Chrysalis checked over her shoulder out the rear window of the car. The street they were driving on was moderately busy, and there were three other cars behind them that she could see clearly.

There was a silver Buick right behind them which was itself being practically tailgated by a white Honda Civic. Driving a respectful distance behind the Civic was a brown panel van that looked to belong to a local pest control company. There were other cars behind it, but Chrysalis couldn’t make them out.

They stopped at a red light, and again Chrysalis noticed Sable glance suspiciously into the rear-view mirror. She remembered the Saturday she’d ridden with Sable to where he worked in Sunnytown, and the likely carjackers who had tailed them to the Blanks. The thought prompted her to ask, “Everything alright, Dad?”

Sable hesitated for a moment, but it was a moment too long for Chrysalis’s liking. “Probably.”

Celestia frowned. “You think we’re being tailed again, don’t you?” she asked. As always, Chrysalis was impressed by her ability to cut right to the heart of the matter with all the subtlety of a blast from the Elements of Harmony, and the “again” made Chrysalis realize this wasn’t the first time.

“I just could have sworn that van had been sitting on our street right up until we left.”

Chrysalis tried to think. In her old life details like that would rarely escape her, but she hadn’t noticed the van. Part of her braced for a remark from Queen about “becoming soft” in her cozy new life, but it never came. Still, Chrysalis couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something familiar about the brown van. For some reason it made her think of a cold autumn night and gave her a general sense of unease.

The light turned green and Sable drove through it, continuing towards Apple Bloom’s for another few minutes. The Civic that was tailgating the Buick changed lanes and sped past all of them, and shortly after that the Buick turned onto another street. The panel van continued on course a good distance behind them. After passing through the next light, Sable quickly turned right onto a side street without using his turn signal. Chrysalis looked over her shoulder again and watched as the van that had been behind them continued driving right on past the side street without slowing down.

Sable grunted. “Guess it was nothing.”

It was around four minutes to six when they arrived. Apple Bloom had said no earlier than six but Chrysalis figured it wouldn’t be a problem and after thanking Celestia and Sable for the ride, got out and rang the doorbell.

She heard a muffled curse from inside the house, followed by Apple Bloom’s voice calling out, “Just a sec!”

Perhaps she should have waited those extra four minutes after all.

“Okay, come on in, Chrys!” Apple Bloom called out.

Realizing that the door was unlocked, Chrysalis opened it and stepped inside. She expected she was the first one to arrive, which was why the loud group of young voices shouting “SURPRISE!” at her nearly made her jump and bare her changeling fangs (a habit she’d very effectively kicked). The living room that made up the entrance was decorated with party streamers and balloons, and her friends were all gathered with party hats on their heads. Not just Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo but Crackle, Coco Pommel and Raspberry Beryl as well.

“Happy birthday to you…” as the group of girls all started singing the birthday song, Chrysalis was reminded of the somewhat embarrassing incident at the movie club yesterday and instinctually checked behind herself. But there was no one else behind her. This time, they really were singing for her.

“Happy birthday dear Chrysalis, happy birthday to you!”

“...And you smell like one too!” Scootaloo’s voice trailed in at the end.

Chrysalis smiled, and feeling the heat in her cheeks she just knew they were turning bright red. “Guys! What the hell?” she happily exclaimed with all the eloquence of a rock farmer. “It’s not my birthday!”

“We know,” Sweetie Belle said. “We just thought that, since you’d never celebrated your birthday before, we’d have a little celebration tonight!”

“Yeah, and you could have just told us that your birthday was October second, Chrys,” Scootaloo said. “At least, that’s what your parents said.”

“You talked to Celestia and Sable?” Chrysalis asked.

“Yeah, they called up my folks yesterday to try to organize a little ‘very belated birthday party’ for you, but since we were already planning this they agreed to let us go ahead with it,” Apple Bloom explained.

She then held out a small box wrapped in festive paper. My first present, Chrysalis realized.

“Your dad also dropped this off yesterday,” Apple Bloom continued. “Said that you’d have a proper celebration with just the three of you later but wanted you to have it today.

Chrysalis was speechless. She had already accepted the idea that she wouldn’t celebrate her “fourteenth” birthday, just as she had (or hadn’t) done for the hundreds of birthdays before it. She was used to other people simply not thinking of her, but here she stood in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise.

“This is…thank you!” she said, wiping a tear from her eye as she accepted the present from Sable delivered by Apple Bloom.

All of her other conflicts and problems were forgotten as she sat down in the living room with her friends and opened the gift: the very same ring she’d been eyeballing at the jewelry store when she’d accompanied Sable there earlier in the week. She suddenly remembered that Sable had been picking up a gift for him and Celestia’s seven month anniversary tonight, and couldn’t help but wonder how they were doing.

As Sable, ever the gentleman, pulled out the chair at her end of the table, Celestia looked around at the restaurant, realizing why she’d been overcome with a sense of deja vu since their arrival. This was the place they first ate at, in the wake of the two would-be assailants trying to get at her during her visit to the Blanks. Thankfully, that had never happened and instead, an entirely different man got to her, in a much more positive way.

That feels like another lifetime ago, she said as she favored him with a smile. Almost as if I had been another person back then.

But just for confirmation, lest nostalgia embarrass her, she chose to ask him anyway. “Isn’t this the place we ate at…?” Celestia started.

“The day we first met? Yep,” Sable finished as he sat down in his own chair.

A thoughtful smile and a “Hmm,” was all Celestia had time to express before the waiter came by to ask them for their drink orders. The waiter and Sable talked extensively, as if they had been sharing something that Celestia wasn’t aware of. When he left, Celestia noticed a distant look in Sable’s eye.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing. Just feels like a lot’s about to change in our lives,” Sable said. A second later, he added, “I am going to miss teaching, but there are other things that need to take priority.”

Hearing that made Celestia wonder herself about his recent change of employment. Granted, they weren’t going to be particularly in dire straits because of it, though at Sable’s absolute insistence, he didn’t want all the bells and whistles that would normally come with his SIREN duties that the other equivalents of his job here on Earth had. But they did make enough that while they would never be able to afford something in San Palomino, a nice two-story in Northside or Bella Vista was looking very doable.

“The SIRENs are taking well to their duties?” she asked lightly.

“They are, but I wasn’t really thinking of them,” he admitted. “I was actually thinking of our most important duty: Chrysalis.” He smiled as a thought came over his face. “I really hope she’s having the time of her life right now.”

“If pre-teen slumber parties are anything like they were when I was that age, I feel sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Apple.”

Sable chuckled. “She’s probably opened our presents already,” then with a slight frown, added, “I would’ve liked to see her reactions.”

“Oh, I’m sure we will, because I still have the other gift we got to give her during our time with her this weekend,” Celestia said, thinking about what they had planned. “If you wonder about what she’s reacting like right now, Saturday should really earn you parental points.”

“Yeah. I just hope it’ll be ready in time.”

“I talked with our point of contact at Social the other day. They assured me the paperwork would be ready by Monday, so we’ll have to move our celebration with her to after school then,” Celestia said. Sable was right about one thing: a lot was going to change in their lives. Yet at the same time, nothing would really change at all. After so much change had already happened—for both of them—what was coming next would be nothing.

As the salads were brought out, Sable excused himself briefly to head to the restroom, and Celestia sat in silence, pondering everything that had changed over the past year. It had only been just a year ago that she’d hesitantly given one last chance to a troublemaker who had turned out to be magnitudes’ more trouble than Celestia herself had ever conceived possible. But now, due to that one chance—her world had changed for the better. Not just Sunset, not just everyone around her. Celestia’s own world was different, so much so that the woman couldn’t imagine trying to explain it to her past self, the one who only knew Sunset Shimmer as a problem child.

Celestia silently chuckled; when it came to Sunset, things like that were probably within the realm of possibility.

Sable came back and smiled. “You seem happy.”

“I am. I was just thinking that a year ago, I thought I’d end up the crazy cat lady with no one with her but her cloister of fifty tabbys.”

“Well, I promise you that won’t happen. For one, your HOA doesn’t allow for more than two pets.”

“You know what I mean!” she mock-scolded him. And even that reminded her of how much her life had changed: just mere weeks ago her life had been a simpler time; just the two of them as a young couple in love—even if not technically young.

“You know, I was thinking: maybe sometime next month, before the snow starts to fully set in, we should take a weekend off somewhere. Chrys would probably appreciate having a weekend to herself, and we could do the Klamath Falls trip for real this time. Luna said it’s worth the drive.”

“That’s definitely a thought,” Sable said, as the waitstaff finally arrived with their dinners. To Celestia’s surprise, however, unlike the typical restaurant plates, these ones came with warming covers, something that hadn’t been expected. A very posh and unusual look for a restaurant of this type.

“That’s new,” Sable said, noting the additions.

The lead waitress nodded. “We’re upscaling since the owners opened up a second restaurant and they wanted to gain a leg-up on the competition, so they thought this would be a nice way to do it.”

“I certainly won’t argue,” Sable agreed. That being said, Celestia’s plate was set before her and uncovered, revealing her order of a salmon dish. In turn, the prime rib Sable had ordered was unveiled before him as well, and he complimented the staff. However, a third plate, a smaller one, remained covered; it looked slightly glazed with frost, as if it was a cold dish being set out.

“That one’s special,” the woman said with a grin. Pointing to the frosted cover, she said, “I would recommend letting that one warm up slightly before opening it. Gets rid of the ice you don’t want. I’ll be back in a few minutes to refill your wine glasses.”

With that, the two began to eat, though Celestia wondered as to what the still-covered plate was. It was set over by Sable, so it probably went with his dinner, though he seemed, oddly enough, to pay it no mind. A short time after, as the two finished off their meals, her curiosity finally got the better of her and she asked, “So, what is that?”

“A priceless treasure,” he said, though his tone indicated that he was probably joking once more.

“Seriously,” she asked again.

“I am being serious,” he told her, then set down his utensils. “Have you ever thought about the future?”

“Well, given I was making a suggestion of what we should do two weeks from now, I would say that’s a distinct possibility,” she said to him.

He grinned at the unspoken touché. “I mean beyond that. Children, grandchildren, a house in Bella Vista or Northside, stuff like that.”

“I thought we agreed to wait on that until we let a year pass, if only so that my mother doesn’t have a heart attack,” Celestia said.

“Yes, but I don’t think that we planned for a particularly large change in our life, either. And quite frankly, Chrysalis doesn’t need parental guardians. She needs parents. And so, it’s time to change the equation. But even if she wasn’t here…I’d do this anyway.”

And with that, he pulled the cover off the tray. The tray revealed a series of small tiramisu cakes, artfully engirdling the outer edge of the plate. But it was what was in the center that said it all: an open box, upon which in its satin innards, contained a truly priceless treasure, just as he had said: a perfect ring, made for a perfect finger.

Her hand went to her mouth in surprise as he got up from his chair, took the ring and went to her side, dropping to one knee.

Her eyes suddenly began to sting from unbidden tears of delight. “You mean…?”

“Exactly. Yes, our relationship hasn’t been anything remotely approaching normal, but who gets to dictate what normal is?” he told her with a smile, as he slipped the band on her finger. “We’ve only known each other less than a year, but as the philosopher Wisewords once said, ‘There are years that sometimes last decades’. And each month to me has been just that—and certainly enough to know that it’s time.”

As she looked at the ring on her finger—the very real indication that she was no longer unspoken for, as the old saying went—she did the only thing she could, answered in the only way she wanted. She leaned forward, kissing her love, focusing every emotion she had in her as she let him know exactly how she felt. The pair’s lips brushed against each other, a metaphorical dance of love as timeless as the emotion itself.

She was so focused on that moment that when she pulled away, she hadn’t even realized that the restaurant was gone, instead replaced by a tropical island paradise. In the distance, over the ocean, the sky was a multitude of redshifting colors as the day that had already ended in Canterlot began to make its final shift to night time here.

“Where are we?” she finally asked.

“A private resort in Kona, Hawaii,” he told her, the look on her face absolutely picturesque as he did. “I pulled a few strings. We’ve got this private beach to ourselves and the cabin over there,” he said, pointing to that, “and in the morning, we’ll return back to Canterlot, so we won’t miss a thing.”

Celestia rolled her eyes. “Should’ve known,” the educator chuckled. “Remind me to thank her when we get back.”

However, Sable only grinned, knowing who she meant, and told her, “Oh, Sunset had nothing to do with this. Though, that reminds me: You should know I did get her to enchant the ring I just gave you with some simple protection spells, as well as a magical tracker. Don’t take it the wrong way, but after what happened over the summer, I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Understandable. But, Sunset didn’t have anything to do with this?” Celestia asked, gesturing to the beach around them.

“Nope, not a thing. I do have other contacts, you know.” He then got up, and took her hand, leading her over to a wooden floor that stuck out of the sand. As they alighted on the surface, an old soft jazz standard began to play. “And let’s just say it worked out for us.”

Nothing more was said as he took her in her arms and the two danced as the final rays of sunlight gave way to the light of the moon.

“Drink, Miss?” the bartender asked her.

A woman with delicate dawn-pink hair casually glanced out a window, seemingly gazing at a parking lot. The bartender had no idea she was, in truth, looking actually a mile distant, towards the private resort on the southeast that she’d rented for a month. At least for one night, she could stay at another hotel and let them have their moment.

“Sure. Got anything for true love?” the woman asked, a wry smile coming onto her face.

As the night was winding down, Chrysalis found herself at the center of her three friends as the four of them sat up against the side of Apple Bloom’s bed, watching the final minutes of a movie on her laptop. Crackle, Coco and Ribby had already gone home, each of them having things they needed to do the following morning (or in Ribby’s case, simply not feeling up to sleeping over).

The very belated birthday party that had been hastily organized for Chrysalis had been a huge success, considering how happy and content she was feeling right at that moment. Her friends had gotten her some pretty cool presents, including a new gaming mouse for her computer she couldn’t wait to try out.

“Now you can be even more accurate when you decide to ruin my day in Minecraft,” Scootaloo had said with a friendly jab.

Probably the most meaningful gift (aside from the ring from her guardians) was a very pretty locket from Ribby…much like the one the girl herself had that Chrysalis had recovered for her on Halloween.

“I feel like a stronger person for knowing you, Chrys,” Ribby had said when she had commented on how expensive the gift looked. “If this gives you the same courage you gave me, then it’s worth it!”

“Aw, thanks Razz…er, Ribby,” Chrysalis said.

Scootaloo had then mimed retching, receiving a smack in the arm from Sweetie Belle beside her.

Hours later, with midnight approaching and the effects of the food comas they were all feeling still lingering (Chrysalis now understood why Apple Bloom’s grandmother’s cooking was so hyped up), it seemed likely the night was almost at an end.

“Hey girls…” Chrysalis said. “Thanks for this. Tonight was a blast.”

“Glad you had fun, Chrys,” Apple Bloom said with a yawn.

“Yeah, maybe I can host the next slumber party,” Sweetie said.

“Or me. If you thought tonight’s food was good, you should come over on a night my family is having pegao,” Scootaloo said.

Chrysalis smiled. She had no idea what pegao was, but was looking forward to trying it. Most importantly, she wasn’t thinking about how many years of her long life she’d gone never having had the opportunity to try it. Or to experience a birthday-slumber party combo with friends. She was content to simply live in the moment.

In fact, Chrysalis felt so at ease with the three girls who had become her best friends, she decided she wanted to share everything with them.

“Hey, girls?” Chrysalis said. “What would you say if I…haven’t been entirely honest with you about myself?”

Her friends looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Does this have something to do with when you were, like, a child gang leader?” Scootaloo asked. “Wait, were you making that up to impress us?”

“No! Well, kind of. See, what I told you before isn’t entirely true, but I didn’t say it to impress anyone. I told you that stuff because the truth is even crazier.”

The three girls were now staring at her, intrigued. Chrysalis took a breath. “You see, I’m—”

Chrysalis was cut off by a knock on the bedroom door. Applejack poked her head in and said, “Heya girls, everything alright?”

“Yup!” all four of them answered at once.

“Good. Listen, I’m goin’ to bed now, and I’m gonna be waking up early to help Mom and Dad out at the store, so if you four are planning to stay up, I’m going to ask you to just keep the volume down, okay?”

“No problem!” Apple Bloom said.

“Thanks, AB. Night!”

“Night, sis!”

With that, Applejack left, but not before making brief but no less poignant eye contact with Chrysalis. The kind of eye contact between two people who were the only ones in a room who were in on a secret.

All at once, Chrysalis realized that she was perhaps being hasty in revealing the truth about who and what she really is to her friends. She remembered talking with Applejack on the matter, and the girl seemed keen on being included in whatever conversation would happen when Chrysalis decided to reveal herself to her friends. Applejack had been keeping a fair amount of secrets from her sister after all, and more than a few of them were for Chrysalis’s sake. It wouldn’t be fair to her for Chrysalis to reveal herself to them, lest she also expose Applejack’s lies of omission to her family.

“Anyway, you were saying, Chrys?” Apple Bloom asked, and Chrysalis noticed that her friends were once again waiting for her to blow their minds.

“Uh…right,” Chrysalis muttered, trying to figure a way out of the little mess she’d just put herself in. “What if I told you that I was actually…the queen of the pillow kingdom!”

Chrysalis suddenly leapt up onto the bed and grabbed a pillow, holding it aloft ready to attack. “And I challenge anyone who thinks they can dethrone me to step forward and face my wrath!”

Apple Bloom and the others blinked. “Oh. I thought you actually had something serious you wanted to tell us,” Sweetie Belle said.

“‘Twas a ruse!” Chrysalis exclaimed, suddenly whipping the pillow at Sweetie’s face.

It found its mark, and the girl’s startled “Eep!” was quickly muffled by the soft cushion.

Apple Bloom reacted quickly, jumping to her feet and rushing to her closet, where a number of spare pillows were tucked away on shelves.

“Scootaloo! To arms!” Apple Bloom exclaimed, tossing a pillow to Scootaloo and taking one for herself.

Sweetie Belle armed herself with the very pillow that had been weaponized against her and proclaimed, “It. Is. On!”

Armed with the other pillow on Apple Bloom’s bed, Chrysalis fought back the usurpers valiantly but was ultimately overwhelmed. After that, the battle turned into a free-for-all, with pillows being swung indiscriminately, any alliances made ultimately temporary in the face of inevitable betrayal.

Chrysalis wasn’t sure how long the battle went on for before they all agreed to call it a truce and started getting ready for bed.

Slowly, Crisalide walked down the aisle, arm in arm with her stern-faced father. The pews on either side of her were occupied by an assortment of well-dressed lords and ladies, as well as members of her extended family. They were all equally strangers to her.

The organ music playing had a somber quality to it; the only way Crisalide knew she was at a wedding rather than a funeral was that she wore a white dress rather than a black one. But perhaps black would have suited her better. After all, she was in mourning: Mourning the death of her innocent youth.

At the altar ahead of her was her groom: a man closer in age to her father than to her dressed in fine silks embroidered with the sigil of House Cavalcanti. Crisalide wanted to think that he too was unhappy with this arrangement, and in a way she was right. One of the terms of his future deal with the Black Unicorn would be a wife better suited to him: One with the body of a woman rather than a child.

That Chrysalis knew this was the first sign that she was in a dream. After that, the rest of the dream started to fall apart like a house of cards. Upon reaching the altar, Chrysalis looked out at the pews and saw a sea of faces from across her entire life. Those who abused her intermingled with those she in turn had abused. Mangle-leg sat with Princess Cadance and Shining Armor in the front row, while just behind them Captain Sable Loam of King Sombra's special forces was next to Raspberry Beryl and the other Scions of Sombra.

As she looked in the pews further back, Chrysalis saw faces from her life as it was now. Those who loved and hated her mixed together: Apple Bloom and her friends were next to Diamond Tiara and hers. Celestia and Sable with Neighsay and Rover. All of them seemed so distant.

“...as long as you both shall live?”

The priest’s voice cut into her thoughts, and remembering her duty to her family, Chrysalis hastily said, “I do.”

She then turned her eyes away from the faces from her life and looked at her groom. It wasn’t Baldasarre di Cavalcanti that looked back at her. It was herself. Rather, it was her as she had been as queen of the changelings. She looked at the priest joining them together, and saw that it was Sombra. He had the face of the human she’d met at the Sweet Spot the other day, but his body was black smoke, and his eyes were burning coals.

As Sombra completed the rites that bound them together, Queen smiled and whispered, “‘Till death do us part.”

With a start, Chrysalis awoke. It took her a few seconds to get her bearings before she remembered she was in Apple Bloom’s bedroom. The girl in question was asleep in her bed while Sweetie and Scootaloo were sound asleep on the floor in sleeping bags, identical to the one Chrysalis herself was in. That none of them stirred indicated to Chrysalis that her nightmare hadn’t been violent enough to wake them, a sure sign that she was improving. Still, Chrysalis couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that something was wrong somehow.

That uneasy feeling kept Chrysalis from being able to go back to sleep, so instead she sat up and grabbed her phone, the light from its screen the only source of illumination in the dark bedroom. According to her lock screen the time was just past two in the morning. It was as Chrysalis unlocked her phone and started idly browsing her social media apps that she heard the sound of a toilet flush from down the hall. Chrysalis spared another glance around the room, and noted that Scootaloo’s sleeping bag was empty.

Giving it no further thought, Chrysalis resumed her mindless scrolling, waiting to feel tired enough to try sleeping again, as she heard the soft creak of the floors in the hallway outside. Scootaloo quietly opened the door, took a single step into the room and stopped. Chrysalis looked up from her phone at her and to her surprise, Scootaloo’s eyes went wide.

“AAAH!” Scootaloo screamed, stumbling back against Apple Bloom’s dresser, not taking her eyes off of Chrysalis. “What the hell?!”

Chrysalis gave her a curious look and asked, “What’s wrong?”

For a moment, Chrysalis thought she could hear a little of her old changeling resonance in her own voice. A sure sign that she was getting tired again. Except, she could taste the unmistakable flavor of pure terror, and it seemed to be emenating from Scootaloo. Was this, too, something her groggy brain conjured?

“Ugh…” Sweetie groaned, evidently having been woken by Scootaloo’s yelling. “Scoots, what are you—OH MY GOD!”

Suddenly wide awake, Sweetie leapt out of her sleeping bag and started frantically shaking Apple Bloom. What was more, the fear coming from her was definitely not in Chrysalis’s imagination. Chrysalis’s own heart started racing in her chest as she realized there was something familiar about this whole situation. Chrysalis stood.

“Bloomie! Bloomie!” Sweetie exclaimed.

Apple Bloom groaned and opened her eyes, which shot wide open when she saw Chrysalis standing there.

“Guys, what…?” Chrysalis raised her left hand hoping to placate the three terrified girls, but her own fears were realized when she saw a black chitinous hoof instead of a hand.

Upright in her bed and staring wide-eyed, Apple Bloom could only choke out, “Chrys…?”

“That’s not Chrys, it’s some kind of monster!” Sweetie Belle said, trembling.

All at once, Chrysalis realized why this all felt familiar. Sweetie’s stinging words echoed what a dream version of her had said to Chrysalis in a nightmare ages ago. But this was unmistakably real. The wary, scared expressions on her friends’ faces were the same as they’d been in Chrysalis’s dreams after Queen had first made herself known.

Wait a second….

Chrysalis looked over Scootaloo’s shoulder into the mirror above the dresser that the girl was still cowering against. Sure enough, Chrysalis’s misshapen true form looked back at her in the mirror’s reflection, but that wasn’t all. Her reflection gave her a smile and a wink, and all at once Chrysalis realized exactly what had happened…and who was responsible.

Unable to hold back her anger, Chrysalis bared her fangs and growled, “You….”

Naturally, this only gave the others the wrong idea and Scootaloo, the mistaken target of Chrysalis’s monstrous anger, reached for what appeared to be an old piggy bank on Apple Bloom’s dresser and held it above her head, ready to bring it down onto Chrysalis’s. Then in a move that hurt far more than any knock on the head, Scootaloo moved to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, putting herself between them and Chrysalis.

“Just stay away from us!” she shouted.

“Scootaloo, it’s me…” Chrysalis pleaded, taking a step towards her, but that only served to agitate the girl even more.

“I said stay away!”

Chrysalis’s throat tightened painfully as Sweetie Belle hid herself behind Scootaloo as best she could, while Apple Bloom just stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes and said, “What the hell are you, Chrys?”

Chrysalis wanted to answer. She wanted nothing more than to finally release all of her burdens onto her three best friends and confide all of her secrets to them, consequences be damned. But no matter how hard she tried, Chrysalis just couldn’t find her voice. She opened her mouth and the painful clenching of her throat allowed only a soft wheeze to come out…along with her rows of sharp teeth.

Recoiling on the bed next to Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle whimpered, “Please don’t hurt us! Please….”

Still looking ready to fight tooth and nail to protect her friends, Scootaloo shouted, “Just leave us alone!”

With her voice failing her, Chrysalis saw no other option but to do exactly what Scootaloo said. With tears filling her eyes, Chrysalis turned and fled the room. She nearly bumped into Applejack, who had stepped out of her own bedroom, likely to see just what the commotion was about. Chrysalis heard Applejack say something to her as she passed, but didn’t care. She needed to get out. Needed to just get away from other people for a bit. She made it to the front door and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

The December nighttime air was cold, but it barely registered. The only thing that did register was the agony in Chrysalis’s heart as she let out a few wracking sobs. How did this happen? It still didn’t feel real, but it had to be. If it was just a nightmare she would have jolted awake by now. Had she really just lost her friends forever?

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Chrysalis realized she was standing outside in her true form and hastily corrected her appearance. That was when she caught movement in her peripheral vision and suddenly her changeling “danger-sense” spiked. But when she looked over towards the movement, she only saw a familiar—but nevertheless unwelcome—figure. Queen’s self-satisfied grin renewed Chrysalis’s anger, and she stormed over towards where the mental projection was standing.

She was the one who did this, there could be no other explanation. It hadn’t occurred to Chrysalis before that Queen could alter her appearance with her own shapeshifting ability, but that was exactly what had happened, she was sure of it. Why she waited until now to do it, Chrysalis wasn’t sure. Perhaps Queen couldn’t do it while Chrysalis was awake and in control, but asleep…. Yes, and hadn't Chrysalis awoken partly transformed on more than one occasion? Had Queen been testing the limits of what she could do with her body even then?

“What the hell was the point of that?!” Chrysalis exclaimed. “You know that I’m never going back to the way things were, so you’re just going to ruin as much of my life as you can, is that it?”

“Well that would certainly be petty of me, wouldn’t it?” Queen said. Chrysalis noted with even more anger that it wasn’t exactly a denial. “But believe it or not, there is a lesson I am trying to impart here.”

“Is the lesson ‘Being a Petty Bitch 101’? Because I already took that class.”

“The lesson is that friends are not worth it,” Queen said with no hint of her usual sardonic edge. “All I had to do was show your friends the real you, and look at what happened. As for your new ‘parents,’ do you think they’d still love you if you looked like that all the time?”

Chrysalis didn’t answer right away, which evidently was answer enough for Queen. “Face it, you can’t rely on anyone but yourself. I learned that a long time ago.”

Before Chrysalis could respond, the sound of a car door slamming close by brought her back to reality…and made her acutely aware that her changeling instincts were still screaming “Danger!”

Looking in the direction of the sound, Chrysalis saw a man walking towards her from a familiar brown panel van parked along the sidewalk a short distance down the street. It took a second for Chrysalis to remember that Sable had been pretty sure a van just like it had been following them on their drive here, and Chrysalis tensed up, readying herself for a fight as the man walked closer.

“Chrysalis, we need to get out of here,” Queen’s voice whispered inside her mind.

She sounded nervous, which was completely unlike her. Did she not think Chrysalis was strong enough as she was now to take on one guy?

“There are others. All around us,” Queen said.

Taking a brief glance around her, Chrysalis spotted other figures emerging on the street. To a common passerby, they would individually seem like they were just on a late night walk through the suburbs. But Chrysalis could see that they were all converging on her and the man in front of her. Remembering her fight with Rover and his gang, Chrysalis could understand why Queen was worried. She had thoroughly gotten her ass kicked in that fight, and Rover’s goons, although big, were not fully grown men like these guys.

“Are they…?” Queen whispered, and Chrysalis could sense her anxiety growing as she realized something that Chrysalis did not. “No, that’s not possible!”

Before Chrysalis could ask what exactly Queen meant, she found herself face to face with the man who emerged from the brown van. Right away she noted the scar across his face. He was definitely dangerous.

“Can I help you?” Chrysalis asked, curling her hands into fists.

“You’re coming with us,” the man simply said, grabbing Chrysalis by the wrist.

“Like hell!” Chrysalis shouted, hitting him with a sucker punch to his scarred face and wrenching her arm free.

Wasting no time, Chrysalis turned to run, knowing she was unlikely to win this fight. She would be safe when she was back inside Apple Bloom’s house, assuming they didn’t just chase her out again. But it was as Queen had said: She was surrounded. Two men were behind her and grabbed her before she could make it more than two steps.

“Calm down,” one of them—a bearded man—grunted as Chrysalis struggled. “We’ve been….”

Chrysalis managed to wrench her arm free just enough to elbow him in the mouth, shutting him up and sending him staggering back. With her arm now free, she brought her fist to bear against the man holding her other arm, striking him once, twice, three times before he finally let go and collapsed.

There was no one between her and the safety of the house now, and Chrysalis ran for it. But a pair of hands quickly grabbed her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the scarred visage of the first man. Chrysalis hissed at him as she again struggled to escape, and the man responded by headbutting her, dazing her momentarily.

She then felt a sharp pinch in her neck as what felt like a pair of warm prongs penetrated the skin and made her blood run cold. Oh no, they just injected me with something, Chrysalis thought, but then she saw the side of the scarred man’s face in her peripheral vision. Felt his hot breath on her own face and realized, No, he’s…biting me!

“Careful, Sulfide!” the bearded man said as Chrysalis suddenly felt her body start to go numb as darkness crept in. “We don’t want to kill her!”

“She won’t die, brother,” the scarred man—Sulfide, apparently—said, no longer with a mouthful of Chrysalis’s neck.

As Chrysalis felt her body go limp and the world around her faded away, Sulfide’s final remark echoed in her ears. “You and I both know she’s survived far worse.”

Hours earlier, Shining Armor was seated at his desk at the Canterlot FBI office. He was poring over files related to the trafficking case that had all the local law enforcement scrambling. Ever since the girl Diamond Tiara had been the latest reported missing, and certain details of the case made it public, the traffickers Red Culpea and Iron Sulfide had turtled up. No further girls had been reported missing since then, and that was over two weeks ago. Likely they only found out just what a high-profile target Diamond was after they’d already nabbed her.

Still, even with Culpea and Sulfide laying low, Shining knew he was getting close. That was why he was still at the office well after everyone else had gone home. They were running on borrowed time. His coworkers all firmly believed that the unfortunate girls who had gone missing—including Miss Tiara—had to be halfway across the ocean by now, completely lost in the sex trafficking industry. A needle in a haystack. But Shining always had good intuition, even when he was just a patrolman in the CPD. He chose to believe that’s what was telling him they were all still in the city, and not simply desperate hope.

He also chose to believe that same intuition was telling him he was close. He was currently mapping out all known sightings of Culpea, Sulfide, and their known associates over the last two weeks. Some of them had been sighted within the vicinity of Canterlot High School—made sense if they were still scouting more potential victims. They had police units around the school at all times of course, and one of them had even spotted Sulfide lurking around, but the man was like smoke and seemed to evaporate when they tried to apprehend him.

Beyond that, this latest development Shining had uncovered while mapping out sightings was completely perplexing. The security camera at a convenience store in Centervale picked up Culpea apparently buying snacks at 4:15PM that Monday. But apparently a desk clerk at the Amtrak station downtown called in to report that a man fitting Culpea's description had shown up at around 4:25 the same day asking how much it cost for a ticket to the end of the line.

To get from those two locations took at least twenty minutes—probably longer since rush hour traffic would definitely be in play. So how was Culpea sighted at those two places only ten minutes apart? The only way it made sense was if the Amtrak worker was mistaken, but Shining had checked the security footage and it certainly looked like it was Culpea. The only other explanation was that he was in two places at once.

“Hey, Armor,” the gruff older man’s voice pulled Shining out of his world of unexplainable contradictions and he saw his boss standing in the doorway to his office.

“Oh, Director Badge. Didn’t know you were still here,” Shining said.

Shining Badge was the man who first brought him in to help out with the Dead Hand Killings, and had apparently been so impressed with his work that he recommended him to work with the Bureau full time. A man in his sixties, sporting a mustache out of an old Spaghetti Western, Shining Badge had apparently decided to forego his usual cowboy stetson today, giving Shining Armor a clear view of his graying blonde hair and receding hairline.

“Burnin’ the midnight oil again?” Badge asked in his usual drawl.

Shining Armor nodded, “Yeah, a lot of weird irregularities with the trafficking case.”

“Well, I’ve got good news for you. I was just talking to our liaison with the ICSD and they apparently just arrested Sulfide and Culpea earlier this evening."

“Wait, what?” Shining exclaimed. “They went back to Imperial County? When? Why?”

“Hold your horses there, son. ICSD only just finished conducting the preliminary interview an hour ago,” Badge explained. “Their liaison sent me the transcripts. I only skimmed them myself, but by the looks of things Sulfide and Culpea never left.”

“Never left? But how is that possible?” Shining asked. “We have multiple eyewitness reports of them all over Canterlot. We positively ID’d them on security cameras for Christ’s sake!”

“Believe me, I’m just as confused as you are, son, but it seems to be the truth. ICSD are positive the guys in their custody are the real deal. Prints match and everything. Maybe the eyewitnesses were all mistaken, or maybe those two guys each have a doppelganger. Unlikely, but stranger things have happened.”

Shining Armor couldn’t wrap his head around it. It just didn’t make any sense! “Where did they find them?”

“That’s the interesting part. The pair turned themselves in. Just showed up to one of the local precincts drenched head to toe in God-knows-what. Based on the transcript, it looks like they’re scared shitless of something. Maybe they pissed off some really dangerous people and are willing to face trafficking charges if it means being protected. I don’t really know.”

“You don’t know?” Shining asked, trying not to sound disrespectful. “Didn’t they say who was after them when they were being interviewed?”

“Not exactly, those two bastards were very spooked,” Badge said. “I forwarded you the info from the ICSD if you want to look through the transcript and video yourself. If you think you can make any sense at all of what those lunatics are saying, you can be my guest, but I’m goin’ home for the night and I reckon you should do the same.”

With that, the director put on his coat and started to head out. But not before Shining said, “But what about the missing girls?”

With a mournful expression, Shining Badge turned back to Shining Armor and said, “It pains me to say it, but some of ‘em have been gone over a month. I don’t think we’re gonna find them, except maybe in a river somewhere. At the very least, it weren’t those two guys that nabbed ‘em. We can only pray that means they didn’t suffer too much.”

Shining Badge didn’t say anything more except “good night” before he left. Shining opened up his Bureau email and opened the folder that the director forwarded him (and the others working the case). Shining quickly skimmed through the arrest report, taking note of the unidentified goo-like substance they had been covered with.

He looked at their arrest photos, and they were unmistakably Culpea and Sulfide. They’d apparently been arrested at 6PM, and Shining thought back to the confirmed sightings of Culpea in two places in a span of ten minutes, that took at least twenty to travel between. He’d left the Amtrak station just after 4:30PM without getting on a train. Was it possible for him and Sulfide to then make it all the way back to Imperial County in an hour and a half? Shining would look into it tomorrow, but doubted it.

Maybe those two guys each have a doppelganger. Shining wasn’t sure why that part of what Badge said stuck out to him so much.

Lastly, he decided to quickly look through the arrest transcript before heading home. There was a video file attached—security footage of the precinct lobby where they turned themselves in. Shining Badge was right about one thing: Sulfide and Culpea were nigh-unintelligible, babbling nonsense to the point that the officer working the desk almost tossed them out rather than arrest them like they clearly wanted.

“We had to claw our way out of the womb—the dark place the monsters kept us full of nightmares!” The Culpea in the video rambled.

When the officer finally did call in the others working that evening to apprehend the two men, the charge he cited was “drunken disorderly conduct” rather than trafficking, assault, or the myriad of other charges that would apply to Sulfide and Culpea.

The word doppelganger again came to Shining’s mind as Culpea and Sulfide were escorted away in the video, and the latter yelled, “Our faces! The monsters stole our faces!”

Chapter 12 - Crossroads

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Annoyed, Applejack rolled out of bed and headed for her bedroom door. She didn’t bother checking the time. All she needed to know was it was far too late for her sister and her friends to be making such a racket. She had told them before going to bed—politely but firmly—that they needed to be quiet when she and the rest of the house were going to sleep. She was fine to ignore the laughter that had followed shortly after; they were having fun, and it was over soon enough. But now, at this ungodly hour, it was too much.

But when Applejack stepped out into the hallway, ready to give her sister a piece of her mind, she nearly bumped into another figure who appeared to be heading towards the front door with all haste. She spotted blonde hair in the darkness, and realizing that it was Chrysalis, she called out after her.

“Hey, Chrys? Where you going?”

It was then that she spotted a glint of light off of gossamer wings and noticed the shape of the horn protruding from her head. Then Chrysalis was out the door and out of sight. Right away Applejack knew what had just happened and sighed as she realized she was going to have to do damage control.

Never expected I’d be having this conversation tonight, Applejack thought as she entered Apple Bloom’s room.

Her sister and friends were huddled together on her bed, and shrieked again when they saw her enter, but quickly relaxed when they saw that she was not Chrysalis.

“Applejack! Chrysalis, she’s…she’s…” Apple Bloom stuttered.

“Some kinda monster!” Scootaloo exclaimed.

“All this time…” Sweetie Belle muttered.

Applejack sighed. “She’s not a monster, girls. Honestly, seeing how close you all are, I'm disappointed in how you’ve treated her just now.”

“But you don’t understand, she’s…not human!”

“Yeah, I know her true appearance looks a little scary, but she’s just as human as you and me.” Applejack’s look hardened. “And I reckon she’s feeling pretty hurt right now after the way you just treated her.”

Sweetie and Scootaloo exchanged a confused look while Apple Bloom looked right at her sister and said, “Wait…Applejack, are you saying you knew about this?”

Applejack nodded. “To be honest, I’d been mulling over how I was going to tell you the truth about all of us for a while now.”

“’About all of us?’ What does that mean?!”

“Do you look like that too?!” Sweetie exclaimed, her voice cracking a bit.

“No!” Applejack shouted before composing herself. She peeked out into the hallway and waited a few seconds. Her parents still seemed to be asleep, so she returned her attention to her sister and her friends and said, “Look, we have a lot to discuss. But first, I’m going to go get Chrys—assuming she’s even still here—and bring her back inside. If I do that, can I count on you three not to freak out again?”

The three of them exchanged another look. “Yeah, we can do that, sis,” Apple Bloom said.

“Good. And while you’re at it, I think you owe her an apology as well,” Applejack stated firmly. “Whatever she may look like, she’s still your friend.”

Satisfied that she’d made her case, Applejack left her sister’s room and made her way towards the front door of the house. She wasn’t sure whether she’d find Chrysalis sulking on the front porch or if she’d simply be gone. Applejack hoped it wouldn’t be the latter. What she saw instead upon opening the front door was even worse.

By the curb a little way down the street, she saw a group of men hauling something into an idling brown panel van with an insect logo on its side. Right away Applejack had a bad feeling about whatever it was she was looking at and took a step further, squinting to get a better look. Her fears were founded when she realized that the object the men were loading into the van was the limp form of a teenage girl with the height and figure of Chrysalis.

“HEY!” Applejack yelled, immediately taking off in a sprint down the porch steps towards the scene.

But the men had already loaded Chrysalis into the van. When they looked up and saw Applejack bearing down on them like an angry bull at a rodeo, one of them signaled something to the driver, and the van sped off in a squeal of tires. The rear doors were still open and swinging freely as the van sped down the street.

With a burst of energy, Applejack pushed herself to run harder, and to her surprise (and the mens’ visible concern), she actually managed to keep pace with the van. Then the van rounded a corner and accelerated even further, and Applejack could only watch as the group of strangers sped off with her friend in their possession. At last, she gave up the chase and leaned forward, her hands on her knees as she caught her breath.

“Damn it!” Applejack cursed. Wasting no time, she doubled back to her house, where her cell phone was still plugged into its charger by her nightstand.

In any other circumstances, her first call would have been to the police, and she may still reach out to them. But these were not normal circumstances, and thus there was only one person Applejack could call who could actually do something.

Sable wasn’t sure what time it was when he was awakened by the sound of his phone ringing. His first instinct was to ignore it—Celestia was sleeping soundly in bed beside him, and if he was being honest, Sable felt more content and relaxed than he had in weeks. But then he remembered the last time he’d gotten a phone call at a weird time in the middle of the night, and with a groan, rolled over to see who was calling. Sunset Shimmer’s name was on the caller ID, and just like that Sable’s fight or flight response triggered. He remembered the midnight attack on the girl’s home when Troubleshoes had been staying with them. Sitting up, Sable hit the answer button and held the phone to his ear.

“Sunset, this had better be the End of Days or I’m….”

“Somebody’s kidnapped Chrysalis!”

Sable’s grip on his phone tightened. “What.”

“Applejack just called,” Sunset said. “Apparently, there was an incident with Chrysalis’s, uh, ‘appearance’ and she ran out of the house, where she was grabbed by a group of strange men.”

Sable thought of the human trafficking group Shining Armor had told him about. Sunset Shimmer was saying more, but Sable couldn’t hear her. The only sound that reached his ears was his own heartbeat. A guttural noise involuntarily escaped his throat, like the growl of a dog…no, a wolf.

“Sable? Sounds like you’re breaking up, you there?”

Regaining his composure, Sable said, “Yeah. Get the rest of SIREN ready in the bunker ASAP. I’m on my way.”

“Way ahead of you. The triplets are assembling the ATG as we speak, and I was going to call Troubleshoes right after hanging up with you,” Sunset then added, “Do you think these are the same people who kidnapped those other girls?”

“Maybe. Whoever they are, they picked the wrong girl to kidnap.”

“I’ll say. We couldn’t go after them before because it was outside my jurisdiction as Alicorn of Earth. But Chrysalis is officially my ward, and my friend. The gloves are coming off.”

“Good. See you soon,” Sable said before hanging up.

He wasted no time getting dressed, which only took him a matter of seconds. He then grabbed the ensorcelled bracelet that Sunset had given him months ago so that he could take Celestia on an exotic date across the world. The memory brought his eyes over towards the woman in question, who slept soundly, apparently undisturbed by his conversation. It would be best to just leave her. She had a bracelet of her own with which she could teleport back home in the morning, and Sable could bring her up to speed after their daughter was home safe. After all, Celestia wasn’t a soldier. She wouldn’t be able to do anything but sit back and worry if Sable brought her.

But a glint of moonlight reflected off of the ring on Celestia’s finger; the promise Sable had made to her that they would be partners for the rest of their lives. No, Sable couldn’t leave without telling her. Not if he meant everything that he told her the night before.

“Tia, wake up!” Sable said, shaking her awake.

Groggily, Celestia rubbed her eyes and looked up at him. “Sable? What’s going on?”

“We need to get back to Canterlot immediately,” Sable said, not relishing in telling her, “Chrys is in trouble.”

“What?”

Sable relayed to her what Sunset just told him over the phone, as well as his own suspicions of who was responsible. To her credit, Celestia remained remarkably calm. Maybe she wasn’t fully awake yet, and believed she was still dreaming. Maybe she was too shocked to process what she’d just been told. Or maybe, she was using every bit of her willpower to keep a cool head, because she knew that panicking would do herself nor her daughter any good.

“What do we do?” she asked calmly. But Sable could see a touch of terror in her eyes as they brought the world around her more into focus.

Sable handed her the other enchanted bracelet. “Here. These can take us right to Sunset’s home.”

“Then what? How do we find her?”

“Don’t worry, that’s the easy part.” Sable took her hand in his, and right away some of the fear in her eyes dissipated. Brushing his thumb against the special ring on her finger, Sable said, “Remember what I told you about the enchantments I had Sunset put on your ring?”

Celestia looked down at the jewelry in question. “The protective spells?”

Sable nodded. “And tracking spells.”

Celestia understood right after that. “You had Sunset put the same spells on the ring you got Chrysalis for her birthday.” Celestia smiled. “You really did think of everything!”

“Yeah, we can only hope she was wearing it when she was grabbed,” Sable said, “Put your clothes on, quickly. Then we’ll go.”

Celestia acknowledged and instead grabbed the night robe that apparently belonged to the owner of this beachside cabin. All the while, Sable felt something stirring inside him.

The beast that he had laid to rest long ago was beginning to come to the surface again. It had peeked its head out of its dark cave when Sable fought that psychopathic mercenary at Troubleshoes’s house months ago. Even then, however, Sable had been holding it back. Because the truth was, the beast frightened him. The memory of Afghanistan and the things he’d done there was still all too vivid to him.

But Sable knew tonight would be the first time since then that the Wolf of Kabul would truly roam free.

“Chrysalis…wake up….”

Still half asleep, Chrysalis rolled over in bed, her head a foggy haze. Her heart was racing. She vaguely remembered that something had happened. Apple Bloom and her friends had been screaming, looking at her with horror. Then she was surrounded by shadowy men. Had all of that been a dream?

“Chrysalis, wake up!”

The voice cleared some of the fog clouding her brain. It was Queen’s voice, speaking to her with an urgency that Chrysalis had never heard from the entity before. That was when she realized that the bed she was sleeping in wasn’t her own, nor was it the sleeping bag she’d been using at Apple Bloom’s. Chrysalis’s eyes shot open.

She was looking at a dark, unfamiliar room. There was an old wooden dresser and half a dozen boxes strewn about in the darkness. The wallpaper was peeled from the walls, and Chrysalis spotted a mess of frayed wires where there might once have been a power outlet. Motes of dust danced in the moonlight shining in through a crack in the tattered old drapes by the window. The whole place had a damp, musty smell layered beneath something else. Something alien and familiar all at once. There was an unusual amount of moisture in the air.

The bed groaned loudly in protest as Chrysalis sat up, and she gasped and scrambled back against the headboard at the sight of a figure standing in the darkness.

“Relax, it’s me.” The figure stepped forward, and Chrysalis saw her own face wearing Queen’s familiar scowl.

Chrysalis took another look around the strange room. “Where the hell are we?”

“Why are you asking me? I’m just as in the dark here as you are,” Queen scoffed. “But one thing I do know is that we are in serious danger. We need to get out of here now!”

Chrysalis remembered being surrounded by dark men and then…. Everything was a blank after that, and her head was throbbing. Standing up, Chrysalis crept over to the window to see if she could get some idea of where she was. Peeking through the window while keeping herself hidden, Chrysalis saw that she was on at least the second floor of a house overlooking what appeared to be a quiet suburban street. It was still very dark out, indicating that Chrysalis hadn’t been unconscious for very long. The street outside was still and quiet, illuminated by streetlights and the moon above.

Across the street was what appeared to be the entrance to a public park, with a main path surrounded by trees. The sight was incredibly familiar to Chrysalis, and she suddenly realized why. It was Owl Park, the very same path she and a couple of her friends had run screaming into on Halloween. It was in remembering that night that Chrysalis gasped, suddenly realizing exactly where she was.

“We’re inside Spooky House!” Chrysalis whispered. Within walking distance of Apple Bloom’s house. Convenient and unsettling.

“So, you do know where we are,” Queen mused. “Good. That should make getting out of here a little easier.”

Chrysalis was already checking the window as Queen spoke. There didn’t appear to be a way to open it, and there wasn’t anything in the room that she could use to break it. Maybe she could break it herself, but if her captors were around, they’d certainly hear her.

Sure enough, as that thought crossed Chrysalis’s mind, she heard the creaking of old floorboards and heavy footsteps just outside the room. Exchanging a look with her mental projection of Queen, Chrysalis flew to the door, quickly and quietly. She pressed herself up against the wall right next to the door, holding her breath as the footsteps on the other side grew closer and closer before stopping. A moment passed where Chrysalis wasn’t sure whether the person on the other side was going to come in or continue walking. Then the doorknob started to turn, and Chrysalis tried to make herself even more flat against the wall.

The door opened inward, conveniently obscuring Chrysalis from view as the person on the other side took a step into the room and stopped. The empty bed was in plain sight of the interloper, who after a moment’s hesitation raced forward, taking a brief look around the room. His back was to Chrysalis. This was her moment.

The man crouched down to check under the bed, and that was when Chrysalis was upon him. The creaking floorboards gave her away, but the man only had time to turn and look at her, still crouched, before Chrysalis drove her knee hard into his scarred face. She recognized him as one of the ones who grabbed her on the street.

Chrysalis followed the attack up by grabbing the man’s head by the hair and slamming her knee into him again. She put everything she had into the attack. This wasn’t some punk kid like Rover and his pals. This was a grown man, and her life was in danger. No need to hold back. The man fell onto his back, knocking his head hard against the bedside table, dazing him. He was down for the count.

Chrysalis hastily retreated, rushing out to the hallway. Likely the short scuffle was heard by one or more of the others. She needed to leave quickly. She closed the door behind her, scanned her surroundings to figure out her next move, then stopped in her tracks, her heart sinking into her stomach.

The walls and ceiling were all covered in a thick, gooey green substance. Chrysalis immediately recognized what it was. It was a type of biomass secreted by changelings with the purpose of altering the surrounding environment to be more livable for them. Chrysalis blinked. She never expected to see such a sight again with her waking eyes and had to question whether she was still dreaming.

“I thought so…” Queen’s voice muttered in her mind.

“Changelings? Here?” Chrysalis gasped. “But…how? Why?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Queen said. “But whatever the case, these changelings are not friends to us.”

She was right, Chrysalis knew. Even if these turned out to be changelings from her old hive, there was almost certainly a new queen running things now. For all anyone in Equestria knew, Queen Chrysalis was dead. But maybe…if somehow, the current queen of the changelings knew that Chrysalis still lived, that queen would see her as a threat to her rule. She would take measures to ensure Chrysalis had no way of ever ascending the throne again. The fact that Chrysalis had no further interest in the throne or changeling affairs at all was immaterial.

She pressed forward, her mind swirling with a thousand questions, all of which she had to push aside as she focused on the most important thing: getting out of this apparent hive with her life.

Sable Loam stood in the SIREN command post in the underground bunker alongside Sunset Shimmer and Troubleshoes Clyde. The triplets were assembled before them, as were the two seniormost personnel of the ATG: Sunny Side and Ushanka. Celestia stood just off to the side, nursing a still-untouched coffee. She looked awake enough without it.

Gesturing to a map of a suburban neighborhood on the main screen, Sable pointed out a larger property. “According to the tracking enchantment Sunset placed on Chrysalis, she’s being held here at 137 Oakridge Drive in Eastwick. It’s a decently populated neighborhood so we’ll be going in quickly and quietly. All weapons will be ensorcelled with silence spells.”

Sunset had asked if it wouldn’t be easier to just use silencers on their weapons (they had several). Sonata had to explain that noise suppressors (the actual name of the devices) didn’t work the way they do in Hollywood movies, and wouldn’t be useful for this mission.

Sable continued, “Once the package is in hand we’ll extract quickly. If we do this right, the neighborhood won’t even notice our presence, but be ready for a hot exit in case a bystander does notice and contact authorities.”

The last thing Sable wanted was to end up trapped in a shootout with police. It was still early in the morning, early enough that as long as they were quiet, Sable was confident they could be in and out before any civilians in the neighborhood were awake. He just had to hope that would be enough.

“We’ll move in two teams. Alpha Team will be led by me and will assemble here on Park Avenue and approach the target from the south through Owl Park.” Sable noted the way Troubleshoes furrowed his brow as he said this but continued. “Bravo Team will be led by our Master Chief.” Sable nodded in Troubleshoes’s direction. “They will assemble by the elementary school north of the target and approach through the field here.”

Sable went on to detail the rest of the op, splitting the ATG into teams and detailing their equipment loadouts.

“And what about us?” Adagio asked.

“Yeah, can’t help but notice we’re not on either of the teams,” Aria said, her usual dry demeanor betraying a hint of indignation.

“I want you three to stay with Sunset here while she monitors the operation,” Sable said. “I know it seems like we’re dealing with run-of-the-mill criminals here, but there are too many unknown factors. We don’t know anything about the enemy numbers or how well armed they are, and I’d rather we weren’t caught with our pants down like we were with Los Perros de Guerra.”

The triplets nodded, even if their frowns indicated they would rather be on the front lines with the others. They understood their duty though and didn’t say a word.

It was nearly 0300 hours by the time Sable finished the admittedly hasty briefing, but it would have to do. Time was of the essence. As Sable went to put together his kit, Troubleshoes followed him.

“Have to admit, I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said.

“If you’re worried about the ATG, I think they’re more than ready for this,” Sable said. “Weren’t you saying just the other day that they needed a taste of real modern combat?”

“Oh, I’m not worried about them,” Troubleshoes said. “I’m worried about you.”

Sable looked at him, puzzled. “Me?”

Troubleshoes nodded. “Fact is, you’re too close to this and it makes me uneasy. I think you should stay here. Give command of Alpha to one of the triplets. As it is, technically, both you and Capt. Dazzle should be sitting this out and Cmdrs. Blaze and Dusk should be leading each respective team.”

Sable growled, the feral noise triggering something in Troubleshoes, because all of a sudden his posture became more defensive.

“It’s my daughter who’s been taken here. I am not sitting on the sidelines for this!” Sable exclaimed.

“That’s exactly the reason why you should!” Troubleshoes said. “I’ve never seen you this riled up before. Please, just… sit this one out, okay?”

Sable’s first instinct was to bark an order. To pull rank. But he realized that Troubleshoes was right. Even still, he was not going to back down.

“And what if it was Tirespin?” Sable asked, and Troubleshoes’s look softened. “What then?”

With a resigned sigh, Troubleshoes said, “You probably wouldn’t be able to keep me away if you tried.”

Considering the matter settled, Sable continued getting ready.

“Just… try to control yourself out there,” Troubleshoes said. “Make sure the person coming to get her is still her father.”

Heart pounding in her chest, Chrysalis crept through the old house, hyper-aware of every creak and groan. Fortunately, the other changelings of this apparent hive were not so aware, as none came to investigate any time Chrysalis stepped on a particularly creaky floorboard. She could tell the house was full of changelings though, even if she couldn’t hear them moving around down on the first floor. She could feel them on the fringes of her mind—about half a dozen of them in the immediate vicinity, and who knows how many elsewhere. The hive mind—the thing she fled to Earth to escape—was stirring within her. It felt like being back in Equestria. The nostalgia was unwanted.

As she pressed on, Chrysalis fiddled with the ring on her finger—her birthday gift from Sable—anxiously and almost unconsciously. Touching it made her think of him and Celestia as she started making her way down to the first floor of the house. Going down the stairs, the fifth step from the bottom creaked particularly loudly and Chrysalis froze in place. She heard footsteps approach from somewhere on the first floor and prepared herself to retreat back up the stairs. But the footsteps did not reach where she was, and when she was sure it was safe, Chrysalis reached the bottom of the stairs.

The front door of the house was just down the hall in front of her. Chrysalis remembered looking through the window right next to it into the very hall she was standing in now all those weeks ago on Halloween. It was a straight shot to the door out to the rickety old front porch outside, and then she could make a beeline across the street into the darkness of Owl Park, just as she had done on that night.

But from there where would she go? Apple Bloom’s house was near, but could she really go back? Memories of the horrified looks on her friends’ faces earlier that night flashed in her mind. No, her friends still thought of her as a monster, and she couldn’t risk leading these changelings back to them anyway. What then? Go back home to Sable and Celestia? No, Sable had told her that he was taking Celestia out of town for their anniversary, and Chrysalis hadn’t thought to ask him where.

She decided that she would figure out where to go later. Her first order of business was simply getting out of this place. Quickly and quietly, Chrysalis started towards the front door of Spooky House but stopped when she heard the sound of footsteps again. These ones came from outside the house, specifically the steps leading up to the front porch. Chrysalis saw the doorknob begin to turn and immediately whirled around.

A door under the stairs she’d just descended was slightly ajar, and Chrysalis bolted for it without a second thought. She got behind it just in the nick of time, because she heard the front door of the house open and the footsteps of multiple likely disguised changelings enter. With more stairs descending into the dark, dank basement just to her right, Chrysalis waited, holding her breath. The changelings—still disguised as men—were speaking to each other in hushed murmurs, and Chrysalis leaned closer against the basement door to listen, but only heard snippets of conversation.

“…finally found her, then?”

“Yes, we need to get ready….”

“…no telling when the alicorn will find us.”

“…seen Ocellus?”

Straining to listen, Chrysalis leaned further into the door, discovering something unfortunate in the process. It would seem that the latch on the basement door was broken, because the door started to drift open as Chrysalis pressed more of her weight against it. She noticed and caught it quickly enough that it only opened a crack, but suddenly the murmuring out in the hall stopped. The sudden silence of the house around her was drowned out by the sudden buzz of activity in the hive mind.

Danger.

Alarm!

Did one of them get out?

Unlikely.

No. Something more dangerous.

Chrysalis didn’t wait to hear their footsteps approach the basement door before rushing down the stairs into the darkness as quickly as she could, hoping that she was quiet enough not to be heard. The basement door creaked as it was pulled open, and Chrysalis pressed herself into a corner of the room, hoping to blend into the darkness.

A single pair of footsteps descended the basement stairs but stopped shy of reaching the bottom. Chrysalis heard a single, “Hmm…” from the figure, which slightly morphed into an inhuman chitter all too familiar to Chrysalis.

She then heard another set of much louder footsteps clomping with urgency on the floor above, and a gruff voice shout, “She’s gone!”

Right away Chrysalis knew that the speaker was the scarred man she’d knocked out in the room she woke up in. For a moment she was surprised he was up so quickly after the beating she’d given him, before remembering he was likely a changeling too.

The figure who had been investigating the basement turned and went back up the stairs. Chrysalis heard him ask, “Who? The queen?”

“Yeah. I went to check on her and she got the drop on me.”

Chrysalis heard a sigh from the other man, and without a door between her and him she could hear him mutter much more clearly, “We don’t have time for this, the Alicorn of Earth is probably breathing down our necks.” He then said much more loudly. “She can’t have gone far. Let’s find her and get out of here!”

A cacophony of footsteps erupted on the floor above as the quiet Spooky House became alive with activity. The entire hive of changelings were searching the house top to bottom, but for the moment seemed to be leaving the basement alone. Chrysalis took a deep, trembling breath and tried to compose herself.

“At the very least, they seem intent on taking us alive,” Queen said. Chrysalis didn’t see her projection anywhere in the darkness of the basement but that didn’t make her presence any less felt. “That likely means whichever usurper these drones serve wants to execute us herself. Either as a statement or because she’s simply petty.”

Giving Queen the barest of acknowledgements, Chrysalis looked around. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness now, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when she thought she saw a large animal peering at her from another dark corner of the room. But another moment looking at it more closely confirmed that it wasn’t alive. Indeed, it appeared to be a fully taxidermied deer, likely owned by whoever originally lived in this house. The dark basement was filled with an assortment of other furniture far less eclectic. A large couch with an ugly, yellow-colored upholstery pattern that probably dated back to the 1970s, a table with chairs stacked upside down on top of it. A vinyl record player on top of stacked boxes (Sweetie Belle would have referred to it as “vintage”), and an old fridge, its contents likely a moldy goo if there were any at all. Cobwebs covered it all, and the bare walls were covered in large splotches of black mold.

Chrysalis then spotted something else in the darkness: something that couldn’t have belonged to the house’s original owner. A large cocoon made of hardened changeling biomass protruded from the far wall like an especially nasty tumor. What was more, Chrysalis could see a humanoid figure inside through its translucent shell. Chrysalis stepped towards the cocoon, letting out a small gasp when she realized she recognized the figure within.

“Well, well, it’s a funny world we live in, isn’t it Chrys?” Queen chuckled as Chrysalis looked at the still form of Diamond Tiara within the cocoon.

She was still wearing the same outfit she had on the night Chrysalis had met with her at the Sugar Cube Corner Café. Her eyes were closed, but Chrysalis could see her chest rising and falling. Chrysalis recognized the type of cocoon these changelings had put her in; it was one able to intravenously cycle nutrients through the victim’s body and could even cycle oxygen from outside through their lungs. With such a setup, any creature within could be kept alive for months, assuming the changelings didn’t feed on them too much.

Chrysalis couldn’t lie to herself; she really didn’t like Diamond Tiara. Even when she went missing, the girl had caused her no shortage of grief. But looking at her now, so still and helpless, Chrysalis could see her for what she was: a child. A child in desperate need of help.

“Oh, no. No, you will not!” Queen stated firmly, evidently sensing where Chrysalis’s train of thought was leading. “The hive is on high alert right now. This is not the time for you to have a conscience!”

“I can’t just leave her here,” Chrysalis said with finality, sticking both hands through the hard shell of the cocoon and feeling the warmth of the fluids inside.

“Yes you can! We’re surrounded by changelings who want to capture us, so give me one good reason why we should even bother rescuing that human!” came Queen’s retort.

Chrysalis didn’t even need to think of why. “Because…at the end of the day, I’m human too,” she said, sounding at first unsure of the statement but realizing it was true once she did. She might have been merged with Queen Chrysalis’ physical body, but in the final tally, Crisalide della Lucca had been born Homo sapiens sapiens, just like the pseudo-comatose girl in the pod.

“Your habitual need to prove that you’re not me will be the death of us both,” Queen growled in warning before Chrysalis felt her recede back into her mind.

Ignoring Queen’s parting remark, Chrysalis tore open the cocoon like a foal on Hearth’s Warming, and then reflected on the fact that her mind made the comparison to the pony holiday rather than its human equivalent. It really is like I’m right back there.

With a little more tearing, Diamond’s limp form spilled forth from the cocoon, covered in the gooey sticky changeling ichor. Chrysalis caught her before she could hit the floor in a wet slump, gently lowering her instead. With Diamond now cradled in her arms, Chrysalis set to shaking her awake, gently at first but a bit more firmly when the girl resisted consciousness.

Finally, Diamond started to stir, first with a gurgle and then a retching sound, prompting Chrysalis to turn her over before she could choke. Just in time too, because the girl spewed as soon as she did. Except it wasn’t vomit that came out of Diamond’s mouth, but more green fluid from the cocoon. Diamond suddenly started coughing like a person who’d just survived drowning, her hacks interspersed with more retches that amounted to little more than dry heaves, which made sense to Chrysalis. If she’d been fed intravenously for the past few weeks, she wouldn’t have anything in her stomach to bring back up.

“You’re okay, just take it easy,” Chrysalis said softly, her eyes flicking to the basement stairs with momentary worry. But none of the changelings up on the main floor appeared to have heard Diamond’s coughing, and Chrysalis quickly returned her attention to the girl she’d just freed. “Don’t be alarmed, I’m going to get us out of here, okay?”

Diamond looked around the room with bleary eyes squinting to see in the dark basement. Finally, her eyes landed on Chrysalis and for the first time since pulling her out of the cocoon, Chrysalis saw clarity begin to enter them…along with sheer terror.

Realizing what was about to happen, Chrysalis quickly shot a hand to Diamond’s mouth, muffling the scream that came out. Naturally, this just sent the terrified girl into a panic, and she kept trying to scream through Chrysalis’s hand as she weakly struggled to escape her grip. Something about the whole situation seemed wrong to Chrysalis. Sheer mind-numbing terror seemed to be the appropriate reaction to have when waking up in a cocoon inside a dark unfamiliar basement, but something about the whole thing just seemed off to Chrysalis. It was like there was a crucial detail she was missing.

Chrysalis grunted as she fought to keep the panicking girl under control. Whatever was off, there was no time to think about it now. “Diamond, please relax. I really need you not to scream right now!” Chrysalis hissed. The image of Queen rolling her eyes played in the back of Chrysalis’s mind as Diamond’s muffled screams didn’t let up, and she wasn’t sure whether the image was planted there by Queen or was just her own imagination.

Losing her patience at the whole situation, Chrysalis fixed Diamond with a deadly glare and growled, “For God’s sake, Diamond Tiara I’m trying to help you so stop screaming!” To her surprise, Diamond actually stopped trying to scream, but the girl looked no less terrified. Still, Diamond actually seemed to be listening to her now, so Chrysalis continued, “We are both in deep shit right now. There’s about half a dozen or more creatures looking for us, so if I take my hand away from your mouth are you going to scream again?”

Her eyes still wide with fright, Diamond emphatically shook her head and Chrysalis slowly removed her hand from her mouth, ready to bring it forward again in case Diamond resumed screaming in spite of their agreement. The two of them sat there for several moments in silence, staring into each other’s fearful eyes until finally, Diamond broke the silence.

“Chrysalis, what the fuck?!” Diamond whisper-yelled. “What’s happening and where the hell are we?”

Chrysalis wasn’t even sure how to begin answering that. Wasn’t sure whether she wanted Diamond to know any more about what she really was than she already did.

“You know how I’m like, not entirely human?” Chrysalis asked. Diamond just answered with a wide-eyed head tilt and raised eyebrows. “Neither are the people who abducted you.”

Diamond nodded, clearly still processing everything that was happening to her. “Okay. And where…?”

“Spooky House,” Chrysalis answered, and Diamond responded with another nod.

“Right, okay. And how do I know this isn’t all a ruse for you to just do away with me once and for all? For all I know, you’re the one who brought me here in the first place!”

“You really think I’d do that?” Chrysalis asked, feeling offended even though she knew there was some merit to Diamond’s words.

“To be honest, I don’t know what you’re capable of. I don’t even know what you really are!”

Chrysalis sighed. She had hoped she’d be able to get by giving Diamond as little of the truth as possible, but she realized it was a fool’s hope from the outset. Diamond was scared—the fear Chrysalis could taste from her was overpowering—and the only person she had to rely on was someone she had no reason to trust. Chrysalis needed to rectify that.

“Okay, fine. I’m what’s called a changeling.”

Diamond stared at her in disbelief. “Like…the creature from European mythology that fairies use to replace abducted children?”

Chrysalis had read up on changeling mythos in the human world around when she first arrived with Celestia and Sable, just for fun. She was surprised that Diamond knew about it, though.

“Not exactly. I’m more of an interdimensional monarch. Used to be queen of the changelings before I decided to start a new life here.”

“I…see.” Diamond didn’t sound like she was buying it. The two of them quietened as they heard more footsteps on the floor above. “And the things looking for us. They’re changelings too?”

“Yes, though whether they’re from my old hive or not I have no idea. Either way, they’re dangerous and we need to get out of here.”

With a sigh, Diamond said, “Okay, I don’t know how much I’m willing to believe, but I guess if you really wanted me dead, we wouldn’t still be talking.”

“Exactly. I know neither of us really have a reason to trust each other but we need to cooperate if we’re getting out of here.”

Diamond nodded, and a bit of her more familiar authoritative tone entered her voice as she said, “Fair enough. Besides, it’s in your best interest to get me home quickly.”

Chrysalis raised a brow. “Oh?”

“I told Silver and Cozy to hold off on uploading our little video for the time being, but if morning rolls around and I haven’t made it home, people will ask questions, and well…” Diamond projected a confident smirk. “I don’t know what they’ll do with that video then.”

At this, Chrysalis couldn’t help but laugh. So much had happened since the night she confronted Diamond at the Sugar Cube Corner Cafe, Chrysalis had almost forgotten what it had even been about.

“Think that’s funny?” Diamond asked, and Chrysalis realized she could still taste her fear strongly and tried to get her giggles under control.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…a lot’s happened. Let’s just say you’ve been missing for…considerably longer than a single night.”

“Oh.” Just like that, all of the wind went out of Diamond’s sails.

Chrysalis felt like she understood why Diamond had fallen back on the familiar blackmail routine, even though it hadn’t worked for her the first time. Naturally, Diamond must be feeling completely powerless right now—a feeling she likely wasn’t accustomed to. Chrysalis supposed it was only natural that she’d want to try to regain whatever feeling of control over the situation that she could, even if it was ultimately futile.

“Yeah, I’ll catch you up on everything that’s happened when we’re out of here,” Chrysalis said, dreading having to tell her that one of her friends was now in an asylum for trying to murder the other. “But for now….” Chrysalis stood and offered Diamond her hand, and Diamond took it with only a little hesitation.

Chrysalis grunted as she found herself pulling up more of Diamond’s weight than she expected, and the girl fell into Chrysalis’s arms, her own legs apparently unable to support her weight.

“Ugh, sorry. My legs feel like jelly.”

Chrysalis was pretty sure she understood why. “Like I said, you’ve been unconscious down here for…a pretty long time. Your muscles must be starting to atrophy.”

“Fantastic,” Diamond deadpanned. Chrysalis noted that she hadn’t asked specifically how long “a long time” was. Chrysalis hadn’t specified because she wasn’t sure how Diamond would handle it, and if Diamond herself hadn’t asked it was likely she wasn’t sure either.

“The good news is, you’re absolutely terrified,” Chrysalis said, and Diamond furrowed her brow. “The adrenaline should help get you moving.”

Putting one of Diamond’s arms over her shoulder, Chrysalis dragged the two of them towards the basement stairs, mindful of the footsteps on the floor above. As she did so, Chrysalis realized what had been bothering her since Diamond first came to.

“Wait a minute…you’re scared.”

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock!”

Except, that shouldn’t have been possible. Yes, fear was a reasonable response for anyone to have in a situation like this, but Chrysalis finally realized what was bothering her: by all rights, Diamond shouldn’t be feeling anything. Victims of prolonged changeling feeding typically became husks devoid of any emotion at all. In fact, in yet another strange sign of how Earth and Equus dovetailed, they even had a common word for it: lotothosis. The origins were different, sure; Earth’s word originated from the Greek legend of the lotus eaters, while on Equus, the word came from an old story about Baroness Lotus Bloom, who slept so much that when she was awake, she’d forgotten even how to have emotions.

Regardless, the words meant the same thing: those who were disjointed from or immune to an emotional response. One could recover eventually from lotothosis induced by changeling feeding, but it took time. The fact that Diamond was not only afraid, but also confused and a bit angry indicated to Chrysalis something that didn’t make any sense.

These changelings hadn’t been feeding on her. Chrysalis could sense Queen’s confusion and concern about this development. What did they need Diamond for, if not for feeding?

Just then the two girls heard the sound of the basement door open just up the stairs and out of sight. Chrysalis silently cursed. Should’ve known they’d check down here sooner or later. Chrysalis spotted a hallway leading to another part of the basement and bolted for it with Diamond’s weight over her shoulder. She wasn’t overly concerned about being stealthy—as soon as the enemy changeling descended the stairs and saw the empty cocoon that used to hold Diamond, it would know they’re both down here.

Halfway down the hallway was a door. Chrysalis’s only option was to hide Diamond Tiara inside and then try to ambush and take out the changeling before it could call the others, even though it likely already had. The hivemind was inconvenient like that.

But when Chrysalis opened the door, entering what appeared to be the room where the boiler and circuit breaker—neither in working condition—were both kept, that plan was immediately dashed. Because in addition to the boiler and breaker, another cocoon occupied the space. Chrysalis recognized the person inside as Twist—the first girl to go missing—but that wasn’t the first thing that caught her eye.

Squatting next to the cocoon was a humanoid figure. It was breathing heavily as it consumed the biomass gathered at the base of the cocoon with ravenous hunger. It was dark, almost too dark to see, but Chrysalis could see that its skin was pale and gray. What was more, it had gossamer wings sticking out of its back.

Chrysalis had only a moment to take all of this in when she heard a soft gasp from Diamond beside her. The girl realized her mistake instantly based on the way her hand shot to her mouth, but it was too little too late. The sound of feral feasting stopped, and the room suddenly grew quiet as the changeling turned around. It was small, Chrysalis realized—about the size of a girl Diamond’s age. Chrysalis saw bright blue compound eyes without pupils widen at the sight of her before the creature let out a scream that Chrysalis heard twice—once with her ears and again as an echo inside her mind. Diamond let out a horrified shriek in reply and just like that the young changeling was gone, having scurried into the darkness in the blink of an eye.

“This is bad,” Chrysalis whispered as the sound of footsteps on the floor above changed. The changelings were now all headed towards the basement door, which only made sense. If Chrysalis could hear that adolescent changeling’s scream through the hivemind despite her own broken connection to it, the others would definitely have heard it.

“Yeah,” was the closest thing to a snarky remark Diamond could muster. The girl was trembling a lot now.

A dozen plans raced through Chrysalis’s mind, each one looking worse than the last. They didn’t have time to get stuck in analysis paralysis, so she quickly dragged Diamond to a corner of the room and tucked her behind the inactive boiler.

“Hide here,” Chrysalis said, and Diamond exclaimed, “Wait, you’re leaving me?” before Chrysalis could elaborate further.

“Yes. I’m the one they want, so I’ll lead them on a merry chase. Wait for an opening and then get out of here!”

“But I can barely stand, let alone walk!” Diamond exclaimed.

She was right, Chrysalis knew. But what other choice did she have?

“I’m sorry, Di,” Chrysalis said, moving back towards the door. “But there just isn’t any other way.”

“Wait,” Diamond pleaded, and when Chrysalis looked back at her she could see tears in her eyes.

A month ago, Chrysalis would have thought that the girl in front of her was only capable of crocodile tears. But Chrysalis’s own abilities made her impossible to fool. Diamond’s tears were real all right. What was more, there was a deep, personal pain pushing them out that went way beyond the mere primal fear for her life that Chrysalis had tasted since she pulled her from the cocoon. Whatever this pain originated from, Chrysalis realized she had also tasted it at the Sugar Cube Corner Cafe during their blackmail meeting weeks ago.

“Please…” Diamond whimpered. “You can’t leave me….”

But I have to, was on the tip of Chrysalis’s tongue, but she couldn’t say it.

“What a waste of effort,” Queen’s sardonic voice said. “What was the point of risking everything to save a girl who, let’s be honest, wouldn’t do the same for you, if you were just going to leave her behind anyway?”

Although it likely wasn’t Queen’s intention, Chrysalis found herself listening to her as one might do their conscience. It made her realize one very simple fact: she was a fool. Maybe she’d always been, since the moment she first agreed to move in with Celestia and turn her life around.

Chrysalis kept trying to tell herself she was a good person now, and as Queen was so fond of pointing out, kept trying to prove it with her actions. And sure, maybe she’d managed to help people here and there, but therein lay the problem. Every one of them—from Sweetie and Button being accosted in the mall parking lot to Silver Spoon nearly being murdered by Cozy Glow—only needed help in the first place because of Chrysalis. Even now, Diamond Tiara was in danger because the changelings were on Earth looking for Chrysalis herself.

And Chrysalis was just about to abandon her to save herself. Yes, that was the truth of it. Chrysalis had always been a master of deception. She was so good, she even had herself fooled. If Chrysalis wanted to be good—truly good, not merely pretending—she needed to be willing to do whatever it took to save the girl she’d once thought of as a friend. No matter how much she didn’t like it.

“You’re right,” Chrysalis said, finding herself feeling strangely tranquil now that it was clear what she needed to do.

“What are you…? Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Queen sighed

“Chrys?” Diamond asked, unaware of the mental conversation.

“Don’t worry, Di. I’m not going anywhere,” Chrysalis said, crouching beside Diamond. “But only one of us is getting out of here. I understand that now.”

Diamond tilted her head. “Wait, what?”

“Just do me a favor and make sure you live a life worth saving.”

Then Chrysalis stood, stepped out of the door and waited there in the hall. As she listened to the rest of the changelings make their way to the basement, took a breath. For the first time in a long time, she felt totally at peace, and she wanted to hold onto that feeling for as long as she could, since it was sure not to last.

She thought of her time with Sable and Celestia—no, my parents, she mentally amended. Watching movies at home, going shopping for clothes, eating out at restaurants. She also thought of her friends. Playing games online, goofing around in the school halls between classes, even fighting the good fight against Rover and his goons. All things considered, she had a pretty good life here, short though it was. But good things were never meant to last.

Chrysalis knew she should have been sad that it was all ending here. Her parents would be heartbroken, and surely once Apple Bloom and the others got over the shock of seeing her true form, they would be sad to lose a friend as well. But the few months Chrysalis had lived here as a normal girl really had been the best of her long, sad life, and they were more than she ever expected or hoped to have. Just for that, Chrysalis allowed herself to smile as the crowd of still disguised changelings approached.

Chrysalis held out a hand in a stop gesture and said, “Now, before you all try to come at me at once, let me assure you that I will not go down easily. I held myself back before for reasons that are my own, but this time I will fight without mercy. Now, you’ll probably eventually overpower me, but not before I’ve killed a good number of you.”

One of them opened his mouth to speak but Chrysalis wasn’t done, indicating as such with a raised pointer finger. “Or…you can listen to my terms of surrender and avoid needless bloodshed. My terms are quite simple: all I want is for you to let Diamond Tiara go, as well as every other girl that you’ve taken. Do that, and I’ll go with you quietly.”

Chrysalis waited for their reply, ready to fight to the death if need be. However, to her surprise, the head changeling actually looked confused.

“‘Terms of surrender?’ What are you talking about?” he said, and then said something that actually took Chrysalis a second to process. “My Queen, we’re here to rescue you!”

The changeling then dropped his disguise, and in spite of the fact that he was in a humanoid shape now, Chrysalis recognized him almost immediately. “It’s…Thorax, right?”

The changeling nodded.

Thinking back to her time as the queen of the changelings, Chrysalis didn’t really remember Thorax very well. In fact, the only reason she recognized him at all was because he was one of a few changelings she’d made a note to keep an eye on for possible desertion or even rebellion.

Chrysalis leveled a hard glare at him and said, “I want you to explain everything.”

Not much later, Chrysalis found herself back in the main part of the basement where she first pulled Diamond Tiara from the cocoon. The girl in question was seated on the ugly yellow couch, quietly taking in the unfolding conversation. Thorax had sent the other changelings up to the main floor except for one, who briefly left and returned with a bag that Chrysalis realized was not a backpack, but a saddle pack. Thorax had then offered Chrysalis a chair to sit on (she elected to stand). Before they could get very far into their conversation, however, the adolescent changeling Chrysalis and Diamond had encountered in the boiler room timidly revealed herself.

“Ocellus, where have you been?” Thorax asked with the tone of a weary parent.

“I…thought I’d start disassembling the cocoons for the captives,” the little changeling—Ocellus, apparently—answered. “Since we’re leaving soon….”

“You didn’t help yourself to some feeding while you were at it, did you?” Thorax asked sternly. Ocellus looked away, which was evidently all the answer that Thorax needed. “Ocellus, we’ve been over this. We are not to feed on any humans.”

The other adult changeling with them said, “Tch. Waste not.” Hearing his voice, Chrysalis realized that he was the scarred man who she’d knocked out in the bedroom she’d woken up in.

“But I feel so weak!” Ocellus whined. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold up a disguise.”

“Then maybe you should go upstairs and help the others tear down the rest of the biomass,” Thorax said. “The sooner we’ve erased every trace of our presence here the sooner we can go back to our world.”

Looking every part the chastised child, Ocellus nodded and went to attend to her task without a word, but not before giving one final wary glance towards Chrysalis.

“I told you we should never have brought her along,” the other changeling said when she was gone.

“It was her choice. She isn’t a grub anymore, Pharynx. She has just as much cause to be here as you and me,” Thorax told him. “Besides, she’s safer here with us than back at the hive.”

“So you keep saying.”

Chrysalis remembered Pharynx. Unlike Thorax, Pharynx was a changeling whose loyalty she had never questioned. Competent and ruthless, Chrysalis had come to depend on him a lot during her final years as queen. It figured that he would be here with Thorax. As different as they were, the two were practically inseparable. That they were the only survivors of a failed brood made them as close as brothers.

Disengaging herself from memories of her previous life, Chrysalis folded her arms and said, “I hate to interrupt the brotherly bickering, but it’s well past time you gave me an explanation.”

“You’re right, Your Majesty…” Thorax started.

“It’s just ‘Chrysalis’ now. I haven’t been a queen in a long time.”

A look passed between Thorax and Pharynx that Chrysalis couldn’t quite decipher before Thorax continued.

“Very well, Chrysalis. Let me start by saying I am profoundly sorry if our actions made you believe we meant you harm.” Thorax then leveled an accusatory glance in Pharynx’s direction as he said, “Suffice to say, none of this was handled the way that it should have been.”

“You got that right!” Diamond exclaimed, trying to massage some life into her weak leg muscles from her spot on the couch. “If you’re all only here for Chrysalis, how the hell did I end up in one of your freaky cocoons?”

Chrysalis had to admit she was impressed. Diamond Tiara was no longer completely terrified and was actually managing to level some of her usual superior tone at what must have been very alien looking creatures from her perspective. Chrysalis had to give it to her: she was a lot tougher than she looked.

“I understand your frustration, but please be patient,” Thorax pleaded. “First, to answer the queen’s question: We’re here because we need you back!”

This much Chrysalis had figured out for herself, but it was also the part that confused her the most: “If memory serves, I wasn’t exactly a popular queen in my final days,” she said. “The amount of splinter hives and rogue queens I had to take down by the end made that very clear.”

It occurred to Chrysalis that both Thorax and Pharynx had been present for a number of such rebellions, on one side or the other.

“True, I won’t deny many of the changelings here—myself included—would rather not see you back on the throne at all,” Thorax said. “But these are desperate times. After your defeat, Mandible took your place as queen of the changelings.”

Chrysalis remembered Mandible: Crafty and ruthless, she was the only rogue queen that Chrysalis didn’t manage to eliminate. She’d heard that Mandible had a brief setback just prior to the events that caused Chrysalis to reclaim her humanity, but given what she knew of the other changeling queen, it was just that—a setback, not an impediment to eventual victory.

“As bad as things were by the end of your reign, they are nothing compared to how Mandible rules. She made it very clear since ascending the throne that none of our lives mean anything to her. We’ve already suffered more casualties in the first week of her rule alone than we had in the entire last three months of your rule.”

“Even though we were all starving at the end of your rule,” Pharynx added. “She viewed making sure all changelings were well-fed was merely the upkeep of an army, not a ruler caring for her subjects. And then proceeded to prove it the first week after your death by attacking the pony city of Underridge. Needless to say, Queen Luna decimated that army.”

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. She may have taken pride in her own ruthlessness back in the day, but she always made sure to minimize casualties within her ranks where she could. Not out of any particular love for her changelings, but out of simple pragmatism. If Mandible was really so callous with the lives of her changelings, Chrysalis couldn’t see her hive lasting much longer than a few years.

“On top of that, she’s incredibly paranoid and doesn’t trust any changeling that used to serve you. She’s already executed hundreds of suspected loyalists, and I believe that once her own broods have matured into adult drones, she’ll completely cull every changeling who used to serve you, regardless of how loyal they’ve been to her!”

Chrysalis saw the slightest shake of the head from Pharynx, indicating that perhaps he didn’t agree with his brother on that last point. Still, if only that much was false, it still painted a pretty bad picture of Queen Mandible’s rule.

“Well, I can certainly understand how even my harshest critics would see my return as an improvement,” Chrysalis said. “Now for my next question, how did you even find me? As far as our world knows, I’m dead.”

Queen Luna had made quite the spectacle of her execution, staged though it may have been. At this, Pharynx reached into the bag he had over his shoulder and pulled out a familiar object: a gnarled, twisted black crown. Chrysalis gasped. All at once, she remembered what Sunset had told her weeks ago about the theft from the Royal Canterlot Museum.

“You’re the ones who stole back my crown!” Chrysalis exclaimed.

“So, you heard about that,” Pharynx said. “Queen Mandible had sent me on a top-secret assignment to track down and recover your crown. I tracked it to the museum and planned to break in and steal it while the bulk of Canterlot’s forces were protecting the castle as the humans returned to their home dimension. But when I touched the crown, something unexpected happened. Through it, I sensed a presence in the hivemind that should not have been there: yours.”

Chrysalis had been “executed” nearly a week before returning to the human world with the others. She was starting to understand where this was going.

“This was no mere echo or engram. I knew right away that you were alive.”

“So, rather than bring the crown back to Mandible, he came to me and told me everything,” Thorax continued. “We quickly deduced that you’d been taken to the other world with the humans, so we gathered what like-minded changelings we could and came here. About a dozen of us in all.”

“At first, we believed we’d need to infiltrate Canterlot Castle in order to get to the mirror portal there—which would have been no small feat—but something else unexpected happened,” Pharynx explained. “It turned out the little one—Ocellus—had stumbled across something rather strange out in the badlands: a rift.”

“A rift? You mean like a portal? Not linked to an enchanted mirror?” Chrysalis asked. If that was the case, this was something Sunset was going to want to deal with ASAP.

“Yes, at the bottom of a pit of moving sand,” Pharynx confirmed. “Further investigation of the rift using your crown confirmed that your signature was coming through the hivemind from the other side. We sank into the pit and emerged in a similar one in a place we later learned was called the Algodones Dunes, Imperial County.”

Chrysalis wasn’t familiar with the aforementioned dunes, but she was pretty sure she’d heard that Imperial County was where the notorious sex traffickers suspected to be operating here in Canterlot were originally based.

“We found a place to lay low while we got a lay of the land, only to find that others were already using it,” Pharynx continued. “However, we had no trouble stealing their appearance, weapons, and other effects and trapping them in cocoons. The kind that dissolves on their own after enough time has passed.”

Chrysalis had a pretty good idea of whose identities exactly they ended up taking. “Right, and I assume that you wouldn’t have used their faces at all if you knew that they were human traffickers on the run.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, by the time we realized exactly whose faces we were using, we’d already tracked your signal through the hivemind here to Canterlot, bringing the heat of this world’s authorities along with us,” Thorax explained. “Although I have to say, knowing what kind of people they were makes me feel much less bad about the horrible fright we must have given them when we accosted and trapped them.”

“So, you guys are less bad than actual sex traffickers. Congrats on clearing that bar, it’s literally on the ground,” Diamond Tiara deadpanned from her spot on the couch. Chrysalis had honestly just about forgotten she was there. “But that still doesn’t explain why you kidnapped me and the other girls here!”

“Yes, of course. We were getting to that,” Thorax said. “Now, after establishing a base here in Canterlot, we set about trying to find you, Chrysalis. Of course, as you are aware, trying to find a changeling in a city like this is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, to use an Equestrian term.”

“They use that here too,” Chrysalis said.

“Oh. Anyway, we quickly figured out that the Alicorn of Earth wasn’t holding you at her facility here, which meant she was hiding you among the populace in disguise. Pretty devious, I must admit.”

Chrysalis’s eyes widened as she realized there may be a pretty big misunderstanding at the center of this whole mess. “Wait, slow down a second, Thorax. Have you been under the impression that I’ve been held here against my will all this time?”

Thorax blinked. “Well…yes. It’s the only way this makes sense!”

Chrysalis just shook her head. “It isn’t, but I’ll explain when you’re done. Now, you were saying?”

“Right. Anyway, the only means we had to find you was using the signal your brainwaves emit through the hivemind, using your crown as an amplifier. Finally, I thought I found you and managed to get you away from your handlers so we could talk.”

“My handlers?” Chrysalis asked, confused.

“According to our admittedly limited intel, Princess Sunset Shimmer’s forces resemble ordinary teenagers here….”

“Wait, did he say Sunset Shimmer?” Diamond exclaimed, looking wide-eyed at Chrysalis. “What does she have to do with this?”

For the first time, Chrysalis was regretting freeing Diamond from that cocoon. Chrysalis was fine with her former friend knowing her own secret, but she didn’t think Sunset would appreciate her finding out her own.

“I’ll explain later,” Chrysalis said. “Continue, Thorax.”

Looking a little confused, Thorax said, “Right. I figured that if you were walking around as just another human in this world, Shimmer’s ‘SIREN’ forces would be close by in plainclothes to monitor you. This meant it would be more convenient for them to have you disguise yourself as a girl of similar age, so that’s what I looked for. But when I did manage to get ‘you’ alone, you seemed confused about what I was saying.”

The girl he mistook for me must have been Twist. She was the first girl to be reported missing after all, Chrysalis thought. She had a pretty good idea about how that happened but let Thorax continue anyway.

“That’s when I made the mistake of dropping my disguise,” he explained. “Turns out the red-haired girl wasn’t you after all. I realized that pretty quickly when she started screaming. I had no choice but to render her unconscious but after that I realized the full extent of the situation we were in.”

Satisfied that she had the rest of it figured out, Chrysalis finished for him. “You figured that even if this girl wasn’t one of Sunset’s SIRENs, she would still tell others about what she saw. Most wouldn’t believe her, of course, but word would reach Sunset and just like that you would all be on her radar. That’s why Twist is now in a cocoon in the boiler room back there.”

If that was the case, Thorax and his changelings assuming the identities of traffickers ended up working in their favor after all. Chrysalis remembered her talk with Sunset when Diamond’s disappearance was still fresh. The only thing stopping her from pursuing the missing girls herself was her “jurisdiction.” As long as the people abducting girls in Canterlot were believed to be ordinary traffickers, she had no authority to intervene. Personally, Chrysalis would take being hunted by the Feds over Sunset any day.

“Well deduced. You’re as cunning as always,” Pharynx mused.

“Yes, but this only presented another problem,” Thorax said. “Clearly our method of tracking you through the hivemind wasn’t completely accurate. We could only speculate as to why, but my theory is that there simply isn’t enough of us on this world for the hivemind to work completely.”

It made sense to Chrysalis. Plus, there was the fact that she herself hadn’t been properly linked to the hivemind since she attempted to use the portal in Sombra’s mirror in the Covenant hideout so, so long ago.

“After my brother’s failure to find you the first time I took charge of the operation,” Pharynx said. “But I still listened to him when he insisted we take our time. When dealing with an enemy as powerful as Shimmer, it pays to be cautious. We spent weeks surveilling the areas where we sensed your presence the strongest before making our move. Then, I ordered the most likely candidates to start being taken so that we could check whether they were you in the safety of our makeshift hive.”

“A method I personally never agreed with,” Thorax added, once again looking at Pharynx with disapproval in his compound eyes. “Your ways of acquiring targets have always been a little…overzealous, brother. You may as well have been throwing these poor girls into a sack.”

Feeling her neck where she’d been bitten when she was first taken, Chrysalis was inclined to agree.

“Wait, let me get this straight,” Diamond said. “Are you saying that the only reason I was kidnapped was because you thought I might be her?!”

Thorax winced. “Like I said, I didn’t like it, but Pharynx is right about one thing: We’re on the Alicorn of Earth’s home turf. Caution was a necessity.”

“The what?” Diamond asked.

“Nevermind that,” Chrysalis sighed, feeling a facepalm coming on. The conversation was pretty much annihilating any remainder of the secrecy Sunset had built up over the years and Chrysalis did not relish the idea of explaining that to her friend.

Thorax continued, “Anyway, you can rest assured, Ms. Tiara, that no harm came to you or the others who were taken. I even made sure none of us fed on your emotions during our time here.”

“That’s…comforting, I guess,” Diamond said. “Still though, you really couldn’t tell she was the one you were looking for? I mean, from what I can tell, she didn’t even change her name!”

“Yes, it did occur to me to look up the name ‘Chrysalis’ before we started our search proper. From what I found, there are eight other people with that name in this county alone. Additionally, I thought that the possibility that any of them could be our Chrysalis was highly unlikely because….” Thorax couldn’t help but give a little laugh. “It’s funny with hindsight, but I was certain that Princess Sunset’s people wouldn’t be stupid enough not to give you a completely different name to go with your new identity here.”

Chrysalis returned his smile. “Well, I don’t think any of us expected anyone from the other world to come looking for a dead changeling queen.”

“Fair enough. Anyway, we weren’t making any progress towards finding you until we grabbed this one,” Thorax said, nodding in Diamond’s direction.

“Yes, we deduced early on that the handheld communication devices that everyone on this world seems to carry can be tracked by authorities, and I made it a point to dispose of them whenever we grabbed someone. However, I made a pretty interesting discovery when I looked at hers the night we grabbed her,” Pharynx said.

Diamond tilted her head. “My phone? What did…?” She then trailed off as it clicked.

She and Chrysalis exchanged a look, and both exclaimed simultaneously, “The video!”

“Yes, thanks to that video we knew exactly what Chrysalis’s current disguise looked like. It still took a couple of weeks to study your movements and find an opening where we could approach you. Unfortunately, we weren’t expecting you to…resist so strongly.” Thorax rubbed his jaw, and Chrysalis vaguely remembered elbowing someone in the face on the street outside of Apple Bloom’s place.

“To be fair, you guys weren’t exactly approaching me as allies,” Chrysalis said, but then she looked over at Pharynx, remembering who was in command at that point. “Of course, your way of doing things has never been gentle, has it?”

Pharynx only gave a terse, “Tch.”

“There’s one more thing that I don’t understand,” Diamond said. “You guys are all shapeshifters, right? Why didn’t you just, y’know…change into the girls you kidnapped and take their place? No one would even know they were gone then.”

At this, Pharynx leveled a glare at Thorax. “Yes, why didn’t we do this thing that all changelings are supposed to do, brother?”

With a sigh, Thorax said, “Although my brother clearly doesn’t agree with me on this, I insisted that if we were going through with this operation at all, we are not to do any long-lasting harm on the residents of this world. Not just to avoid the alicorn’s wrath, but that of the humans as well. Admittedly, it’s for that reason I made sure we didn’t feed on any of the girls we cocooned. The same would apply to feeding on the loved ones of the girls we would have replaced.”

Chrysalis understood what that meant immediately. “If you haven’t been feeding on any humans, then your reserves of changeling magic must be running very low. If you intended to assume the identity of the girls you abducted, you’d need to keep your disguises up all the time—something you couldn’t do without a source of love to feed on.” To say nothing of the months of research and observation that was usually required before a deep cover job like that could be carried out, Chrysalis thought.

“That’s right,” Pharynx said with a roll of his eyes. “Oh, brother mine. We made this mission so much more difficult than it needed to be, all because you’re scared of a few humans.”

“I simply haven’t forgotten the massacre in the caves at the hands of those SIRENs, and considering you went along with my plan, I’d say you haven’t forgotten it either, right brother mine?”

Pharynx said nothing in reply, save for his patented, “Tch.”

“Well, it sounds like you guys really went through a lot to find me,” Chrysalis said. “Which is why I’m truly sorry to tell you that you came all this way for nothing.”

At that, Thorax looked at her, his expression turning unreadable. “Right, you did seem confused when I said we believed you were a prisoner here. I take it, then, that you’re here because you want to be?”

Chrysalis could sense his disappointment as she nodded. “Sorry.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly how either of us expected this to go, but I suppose it can’t be helped,” Thorax said. “Can you at least think about it? We have a little bit more to do before we’re ready to leave, including freeing the other girls from their cocoons. We were planning on taking you back to the portal at the Algodones Dunes when we were done. You could still come with us, but it’s ultimately your choice. It’s not like it’s within our power to force you to retake your throne.”

Thinking about it, Mandible’s rise to power is my fault, Chrysalis mused. If I’d been a better queen, then maybe….

“I’ll consider it,” Chrysalis said, realizing all of a sudden that she really was considering it.

“That’s all I ask,” Thorax said, before leaving to attend to whatever he had left to take care of.

Chrysalis took a breath. When she went to bed with her friends in Apple Bloom’s room that night, she certainly hadn’t been expecting to be called back to the other world to be a queen once again. What was more, she didn’t expect that she’d really be considering it.

“And why shouldn’t you consider it?” Queen’s voice suddenly rose in her mind. “It is what you deserve, after all. Like it or not, you were born to be a ruler.”

Chrysalis didn’t have the energy to argue with her. If nothing else, she was happy that the abducted girls were all safe, or at least were soon to be. More than that, she was pleasantly surprised that—for a nice change of pace—the situation wouldn’t need to be resolved with bloodshed.

In the shadows of a tree just off the dark path of Owl Park, Sable Loam spied the front entrance to the old, decrepit house through the scope of his rifle. LTJG Sunny Side was with him, along with Embiggen and Moonblazer. All of them were kitted out in full SIREN tactical gear, complete with night camo, body armor, PDWs, and extra ammo in each of their pouches. They were ready for war.

Through his scope he spotted two tangos loading up the brown panel van sitting in the driveway with provisions, along with a third tango loafing around by the house’s main door. Taking another glance at the van that said S&S Pest Removal, Sable wondered whether it was full of helpless little girls about to be shipped overseas. He thought about Chrysalis being among them, and his finger moved towards the trigger of his rifle.

Forcing the angry wolf inside him at bay, Sable moved his finger off the trigger (the safety was still on anyway) and spoke into his radio headset, “This is SIREN Actual. Alpha on site at south entry point. Have eyes on three tangos. What’s the status of Bravo?”

Sable heard Troubleshoes’s voice respond, “This is SIREN Bravo 6. Bravo just arrived on site at north entry point. No tangos visible.”

“Heh. Guess that means we get all the fun for ourselves,” Moonblazer whispered.

“River City, or did you forget?” admonished Sunny Side, using the brevity code for Reduced Communications, or in layman’s terms, “shut up.”

Sable ignored them and spoke into his headset, “Toss the golf ball and move in on my mark.”

The “golf balls” were actually ensorcelled gems, white in color that had dimples carved into them where the spells would start to suck in specific sounds within a 100-meter radius. It had been Aria that had noticed the gems’ similarity to the sports item and thus how they got their nickname. In fact, the Tactical Environmental Suppression Compensator Stones (as they were officially termed) pretty much blocked all but the loudest of sounds from escaping. That, combined with their magically-silenced weapons gave Sable hope that the neighbors wouldn’t be awoken by the sounds of gunfire at just past three in the morning and call the police.

Looking again at the tangos in front of the house, Sable quietened his mind and focused solely on the mission in front of him. The thought of Chrysalis in the hands of these scumbags filled him with such rage that he didn’t even notice that two of the tangos had the same face. Focusing his anger, Sable spoke into his radio headset once more.

“At this time, weapons free, weapons free. Give these pieces of shit no quarter.”

“Should we capture one just in case?” Sunny Side asked.

“If we get around to it,” Sable responded grimly, his tone indicating that he didn’t plan on it.

Paint the Sky

by Flynt Coal

Chapter 1 - Brave New World

Chapter 2 - The Bad Seed

Chapter 3 - Illusion of Friendship

Chapter 4 - Chrysalis the Normal Highschool Girl

Chapter 5 - Anything Can Happen on Halloween

Chapter 6 - Somebody To Love

Chapter 7 - Inner Demons

Chapter 8 - The Battle

Chapter 9 - Killer Queen

Chapter 10 - Friends Will Be Friends

Chapter 11 - Lost Time

Chapter 12 - Crossroads